Water Day Saints
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: Water and air are either allies or enemies for Station 51 amid triage chaos at both Rampart and on the street.


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Thirty Two

32. Water Day Saints Season Five- Episode 32 Short summary-  
Water and air are either allies or enemies for Station 51 amid triage chaos at both Rampart and on the street.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

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Long Summary-  
Hank polices an annual meeting to find a way to help pay for a new invention of Stoker and Kelly's. They create a new holiday, an expansion on their usual fire station tour, called Water Day. Station 51 is called out to a mass casualty incident involving cars and trucks on the freeway and as first on the scene, they become head of triage operations. Gage heads the initial care on multiple victims and Stoker spots a problem with a man caught inside a cement mixer who becomes the priority first victim.  
Brackett arrives to assist in his difficult extrication. Water Day commences at Station 51 with a flood of children. A boy gets stuck in one of the station's bathroom toilets and has to be rescued. Rampart fields a busy night of patients gamely. During the quiet night at the station, Gage tries unsuccessfully to find out what invention Chet and Stoker are working on.  
Station 51 responds to an overturned tanker truck full of...maple syrup. )  
The new invention arrives at Rampart for its phase two test via a stokes with a CPR manikin. It's an automated CPR machine that uses a contracting chest band and passes with flying colors even on a day old corpse. Gage learns tremendous truths about the ineffectiveness of modern day CPR from Brackett in a poignant demo using Stoker and Kelly's trial device. An exhausted Dixie and Brackett escape the hospital for some takeout and time in a hot tub.  
Station 51 responds to a ruptured natural gas line from a construction accident.  
They begin evacuations of the neighborhood downwind. They find Dixie and Brackett in the doctor's house, unconscious from gas asphyxiation and they treat them. A little girl bystander approaches the firefighters and shares some news about their station now being famous in her school because of a news broadcast that was filmed at the station about Water Day, making the whole gang smile.

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The Story Unfolds...

Season Five, Episode Thirty Two.  
Water Day Saints Debut Launch: April 1st, 2006.

*  
From: "Roxy Dee" Date: Wed Apr 5, 2006 0:53am Subject: Drooling For Donuts~~

Johnny Gage sailed into the day room in the best of moods.  
"Morning. Morning all. Isn't this the most terrific morning, guys?  
Boy, last night I think I had the best date I've ever--"

"You're late.." grumbled Cap. "We're just about to begin the meeting the chief's asked us to have about lining up another fundraiser for the station."

Completely unphased about his tardiness or the growled complaint,  
Johnny snatched up the warming coffee pot from the stove and sat down in a spot next to his partner. "Oh, Cap. Not another one. I still have nightmares about how badly the one we tried to set up selling fireman's picnic tickets at Rampart."

Chet and Stoker, who were still whispering confidentially about something together in close conference, broke off when Johnny got curious enough to peek at some papers they had laid out on the table in front of them. Kelly protectively snatched them up and stacked them,  
keeping their information a secret. "Only you did so badly, Gage. The rest of us breezed through selling our ticket packets. We had no problems at all. Who knows what your excuse was."

"Maybe Johnny's just not a born door to door salesman." Marco scoffed kiddingly.

"Ain't that the truth.." Chet goggled. "I mean, who'd buy from a fireman with that smile coming at em.."

"Hey...." Gage protested immediately. "Cap.. now that was uncalled for. Chet just--"

"Cap just nothing, Gage." said Hank, no nonsense."I'm not responsible for Kelly's flapping gums."

"Yeah, there is such a thing as the First Amendment in this country, Johnny.  
Did you miss hearing about that in school when you were growing up?"  
Chet grinned, trying to snatch a donut waiting on the platter in front of them that was to be their reward for getting company business done.

Hank smacked a butter knife across his knuckles instantly.

"OwW!" Kelly howled.

"Not until we're done. You know the rules. You should know them better than anybody else around here." Cap told Kelly.

Johnny laughed, celebrating Chet as he nursed his knuckles in between his lips. "And who's been assigned to this station longer than anybody else has been, except Stoker?" he teased.

Bonnie, sitting on the empty chair next to Johnny, was practically salivating as she stared at the freshly baked donuts Cap had set out intentionally as a powerful meeting attendance incentive.

Kelly just glared at him for a few seconds, then fell into blatant ignoring as he and Stoker brought their heads together into animated conversation about something that seemed to be a project that they were working privately on together. Roy seemed to know what it was, for he began nodding to himself when he overheard a term or two outlining a specific that they were hashing out.

Gage couldn't help but be cattish. "Ok, so what're you working on?" he asked them.

Stoker and Kelly didn't look up. They might as well have been a news broadcast for all the response they gave Johnny.

Hank, however, immediately glommed onto Gage's interest and set him straight. "They're working on what the chief asked them to directly. And that project's gonna be the meat of this whole meeting today. We're gonna raise money so Stoker and Kelly can continue working on it with the department's blessing. So the sooner you zip your lips the sooner we can get eating the donuts I brought in for all of us."

Marco's stomach couldn't keep silent any longer and it growled.  
"Sorry." Lopez mumbled. "Guess I'm just as bad as Bonnie here."  
he apologized.

Chet Kelly eased Bonnie's self inflicted torture by sweeping her into his lap and petting her affectionately. "I'll start this meeting off, Cap. Stoker and I have already come up with our preliminary figures. We figure we'll need around five hundred dollars to complete phase two. That'll include paying for Brackett's time evaluating our invention and the cost of materials to build it."

"What invention?" Johnny interjected clearly into a pause in conversation.

"If you needed to know that, I would have told ya. Now shush."  
Cap glared at him. "Drink your coffee and cork it."

Gage immediately whispered animatedly to Roy. "What's this all about? Geesh,.. I was only trying to-"

"Shhh." Roy said mildly. "I'm trying to listen to this.." he stage whispered.

"Listen to what? They haven't even given us a real subject matter yet."  
Johnny countered.

DeSoto shut his partner up by pouring way too much sugar from the table dispenser into Johnny's mug with intentional moderate malice.

Gage sighed and rubbed his face in irritation at the stunt.  
Then he started fidgeting in his seat, when he began to realize that he'd be unable to dump out his coffee into the sink just yet with the meeting officially going on to go pour himself a new one.

He finally fell to silence.

Hank conducted the next natural question."Does anybody have any ideas on how we can get half a G by the end of next week to fund this brainchild project submission?"

Gage decided to hasten things along. "How about a barbeque or a fish fry at the supermarket?" he suggested sarcastically.

Chet didn't even blink a mild eye. "That'd cost us personal money first, Johnny. And you already know how hard that is to swing getting ANY money from the other shifts."

"I agree. So some kind of cookout's out." Cap said empathetically.

Johnny threw up his hands. "Well, what other option have we got?  
Anything we plan to do's gonna cost us money, even if we just host a handpainted backyard carnival dunk tank and cheek kissing booth."

Stoker looked up at that enthusiastically. "Now that's getting a little closer.." he said brightly.

Roy raised his hand slowly with confidence."I got it."

Hank called on him with a nervously chewed on pencil eraser. "Shoot it out."

"We declare a fire department holiday for kids and spruce up the usual station tour rigmorale to make it more fun. Then ask for donations from all the parents." DeSoto smiled.

"Hey. Now that's one heck of an idea.." Kelly grinned toothily.  
"Stoker, I think we're back in business here."

Gage blinked into another pause. "Back in what business?"

"Never you mind." Stoker said, flipping a chin at him. "You'll find out about it soon enough when the time's right."

Hank clattered his drained coffee mug on the table to call things back into order. "Ok,.. sounds like a great idea, Roy. What shall we call it when we sing out about it with an advertisement tarp hanging from the flagpole?"

Roy looked a little uncomfortable then and he crossed his arms across his chest shyly. "Well, I don't exactly know, Cap. I.. sort of didn't think it through that far yet."

Marco piped up. "I got it.. why don't we call the holiday pitch Water Day? The kids'll get it right away. Getting chances to fire off real fire hoses despite of the drought restrictions.. It'll be perfect!"

"It sure would.." said Cap, enthusiastically. Then he snatched for a donut faster than the speed of light. "Meeting's over.. Gage, you were late so you get to design and paint the tarp banner. Solo.  
Give it to Stoker when you're done so he can string it up and fly it by tonight."

"What!?!" Johnny sputtered.

"Don't press your luck, Johnny." Roy warned him with a grin, reaching behind and over his back for the coffee pot to give to Johnny so he could get a fresh cup to replace the one DeSoto had ruined. "You just may learn to regret it."

"But..." Gage gasped.

Bonnie barked.

"Uh oh.." said Hank.

The tones went off. ##EEE, ooo AArrrrroooo.##

The gang grabbed two donuts in each hand and jogged out of the kitchen.

Before he left, Chet broke off a large piece of one of his for the diminutive Yorkie still sitting patiently in her chair.

Bonnie wagged her tail at him and yipped in appreciation.

##Station 29, Truck 8, Heavy Extrication 20, Station 51. Battalion 1.  
Multiple car traffic accident with injuries. Highway 580 and Ventura Freeway. Highway 580 and Ventura Freeway. Time out 0915.##

Cap felt his blood begin to pump as he hauled on his turnout jacket. "Let's move. Sounds like a big one." Then he got on the radio. "Station 51, 10-4. KMG 365...."

The rest of them needed no encouragement.

Soon, the squad and engine were driving down the boulevard with all their lights set to maximum, their sirens screaming for space through which to dart around the morning's choking rush hour.

Photo: The gang sitting around the kitchen table in a meeting.

Photo: Gage with Chet Kelly holding Bonnie in his lap.

Photo: Stoker and Chet listening to conservation closely.

Photo: Gage agonizing over not knowing something by the engine.

Photo: Roy pouring Johnny a cup of coffee by the stove.

Photo: A large car pileup under a viaduct in daytime.

Photo: Station 51 arriving on scene from the distance.  
*************************************************** From: "patti keiper" Date: Thu Apr 6, 2006 8:15 pm Subject: MCI Level 1

The hair started going up on the back of Hank Stanley's neck as they got closer to where they could see the morning rush backing up. "Oh, L*rd. There must be a dozen cars involved in this one." he said to everyone in the Ward's cab. He got on the mic.

"L.A., this is Station 51. We're arriving on scene.  
I'm seeing a multiple MVA pileup in excess of ten vehicles just south of the Highway 580 viaduct. I'm officially declaring a Level One Multiple Casualty Incident. Infrastructure has collapsed on top of vehicles and at least one semi truck of undetermined type. The command post will be Engine 51 with the same call sign until further notice. Note the best route of access is from the north along the outside lane's margin, going southbound."

There was a slight pause as Sam Lanier, the dispatcher of the day, digested Cap's information. ##10-4. Confirming MCI Level 1. I copy victim numbers ten or more vehicular. Responding four additional paramedic stations, a full hazmat team and two air support units.##

Fluting tones rang as the county wide issue came over on Station 51's frequency as the high level incident was radioed out to all available EMS in range. It was followed with rapid radio traffic as additional police and highway response crews were notified of the call and acknowledged it.

##Engine 51, Battalion 1. My ETA is still four minutes out. I'm giving you permission to assume the scene as Incident Commander. Install your posts ASAP.## said the chief through his car radio.

"10-4, Battalion 1. L.A. an update. There is no smoke. I repeat. No smoke as yet." annunciated Cap clearly to his superior.  
::Last thing we need are fires breaking out.:: Then he turned to his men, gathering around him with full turnouts, tanks and gloves.  
He spoke urgently quiet. "As I assign you, put these reflective vests on."

Captain Stanley's mind kicked into high gear and he took action,  
giving rapid orders. "Roy, take over as Medical Group Supervisor. Order any needed resources through me, such as law enforcement or coroner's aid. Establish communications through a secondary control channel and designate yourself as DeSoto HT 51 to L.A. Make three staging treatment areas for triage, red immediate, yellow delayed and green minor. Use the squad's triage kit for taping.  
Gather the bottom halves of all triage tags with their patient information and have them brought to me. When Battalion gets here, he'll coordinate evacuations as Operations Section Chief."

Roy nodded, breathing hard as his eyes took in more and more of the damage laid out about them.

Hank turned to his left.  
"Stoker, you're my Safety Officer, sweep the area and determine casualty numbers and all hazards and report them to me directly.  
It'll be your job to make sure no one, including rescuers, gets into danger while working out there. Direct units to handle any problems you see through my channel. You arrange critical hazard mitigation, deal with any fire threatening survivors and all critical exposures, ongoing hazardous substance releases, and any further structural instabilities. Manage all of that before performing any nonambulatory victim rescues."

"Right, Cap." said Stoker putting on his scba mask. He snatched up his HT and went running for a slope above the pileup to get a birdeye's view of the whole area.

"Chet, you're the Transportation Supe. Create channel Kelly HT 51. You'll be responsible for loading ambulances by priority triage tags and sending recovered victims off to the appropriate assigned hospitals. Coordinate with Rampart, Mercy General and Mount Sanai Hospitals direct." Hank directed. "Roy will send victims to you as you call for them."

"Got it, Cap." said Kelly. He swiftly decided that an adjoining viaduct cloverleaf circle would make the perfect helicopter landing zone and ambulance disembarkation point. He ran for that area, changing channels on his handheld as he hurried into his scba mask.  
"Johnny, you're the head treatment unit leader for triaging on Gage HT 51. Use the first two arriving paramedic units and make them a part of your team. Declare yourself now and have them report to you out there directly. Go. Grab the Ward's triage kit and tags with just minimal airways and trauma dressings. The rest of any squads' gear will be brought to triage shortly."

"I'm gone." said Johnny, heading for the nearest car to their location.  
He didn't hurry, but first looked to Mike Stoker for a thumbs up to make sure the area he was entering was truly safe.

Then he got his hand signal to proceed in and suddenly all the rest was as if he was wearing blinders.

Set on his new channel and connected with those rescue squads coming to report to him, Gage reached his first victim...

It was a woman, twisted and moaning in the driver's seat.

"Maam, stay still. I'm a paramedic with the Los Angeles County Fire Department." he said, reaching into the shattered car window.  
"Can you understand me?" he asked the panting, bloody woman as he grabbed her by the sides of the head to check her true consciousness level.

Her respirations count was twenty and he got a pulse at her wrist easily but she didn't open her eyes for him or attempt to answer any of his loud questions. Gage swept down her body and limbs for problems. He found and tied off a bad bleed on her right thigh. Finding nothing else, Johnny got the young lady's license out of her purse, wired it to the woman's triage tag and wrote down the controlled bleeding's location and the time, and left a triage tag untorn as red immediate around her upper arm.

Her companion was on the floor, unmoving. Jerking the passenger side door open, Johnny crawled inside the car and climbed on top of the seat. He checked and found no breathing with his hands. Ignoring the finer spinal protocols, he tipped up the man's chin with a jaw thrust and listened for air exchange. He found none.  
Johnny left the man with a short tag torn down to the black color and a time.

There was no one in the back seat in spite of a child's restraint chair strapped in. Johnny marked the car's roof with an orange spray can. ' R X 1, D -- 1.'

----------------------------------------------------------

On the hill, Cap noticed Johnny's first marker. He got on his hand held radio. "Engine 51 to Engine 29. You're assigned extrication. Head for the white two door Chevy Impala that's been marked, immediately next to Squad 51. One victim critical."

##Engine 29 to Engine 51. We copy. Our crew's moving in.##

Cap noticed Heavy Extrication Unit Twenty rolling in with her sirens blaring. "Truck Twenty. Head for the broken viaduct. We're seeing two pinned cars by that jackknifed truck. Determine all hazmat risks, live victim numbers, then radio back to me. I'll send no paramedics into your area until you secure full scene safety."

##Truck 20, Engine 51, 10-4.##

-  
Roy DeSoto was animated. He spoke into his frequency,  
requested, and got a reply back for a doctor and nurse to fly in from Rampart. "I'll use both of them for victim treatment.  
Vince can head up being morgue manager. Looks like Johnny's found the first Code F." he mumbled to himself.

He contented himself with laying out multiple tarps and medical gear upwind of the crash site into three rows. He squared these off into three sections with red, yellow and green tape on sticks thrust into cones. Moving to Squad 51, he unloaded absolutely every piece of medical gear it had and organized them opened and ready to use in a row along a center aisle which ran through the middle of all three tape colored areas. Thinking ahead, he asked a couple of policemen to go to any other light flashing rescue squads parked away from the crash site to gather their gear and courier the equipment to the triage station.

Then he waited with a command slate for the first fire teams to arrive with a victim's stokes. When he saw two firemen coming from the white chevy, he called for a paramedic team to intercept and treat the red tagged woman without using their biophone. "Treat her briefly here then contact MD control when you're in route. Brackett's on the way to the scene if you find anything life threatening that needs immediate intervention with a doctor's order." he told them.

Squad 29's medics handed Roy half of the woman's triage tag outlining her designated color and the ID notes Johnny had jotted down along with her driver's license. He got on the radio to Chet. "DeSoto HT 51 to Kelly HT 51."

##This is Kelly HT 51.##

"I've a red tag. She'll be ready to move out your way in.." Roy peered closer at what the paramedics were doing for her with an I.V., oxygen without an airway, and additional dressings to her one wounded leg and guessed at her possible departure time."Four minutes. Altered LOC. Bleeding controlled. Triage tag number #1. An Evelyn Samuels. Age 54."

##This one a fly out?## asked Chet, writing down the woman's information on his command slate.

"No, we've stabilized her. A ground transport will do." Roy told him.

##I've a Mayfair standing by. Two spots. A rider bench and a gurney.##

"Send those attendants on foot for her." DeSoto told Chet. "She's in a stokes. I'll try to get another red tag for you to go along with her."

##They're on their way.## Kelly promised Roy.

-  
Johnny moved rapidly through the next two cars, there were three green tags, panicking assuredly, but he managed to convince them to remain where they were inside the glass cracked vehicles until other firemen arrived who could help walk them out to the triage station.

"Meyers! I got a non-mover over here!" Gage shouted to another paramedic that he had assigned to work under him. "Boy of ten or so. In the black convertible!"

"Where are you?" asked the voice through the steam of violated cars and dust.

"See my tags? I looped them onto the car's radio antennae!"

"Got you." shouted the man.

He rushed to the car door that Johnny was struggling to open and helped him yank it ajar. Both men got inside in seconds and crouched over the crumpled boy in the back seat. His shirt was bloody. Gage knelt and listened close to the boy's face.  
"He's not breathing." Johnny told him as he opened the child's airway with a modified jaw thrust.

"Does he have a pulse?"

Gage felt for one at the boy's carotid. "Yes."

Meyers bent low and gave the boy five ventilations mouth to nose, pressing the boy's lips closed to prevent escaping air. "How about now?" he asked maintaining the boy's open breathing position.

"That did it. He's around 46 times a minute." Johnny smiled.

Meyers sighed and slipped in an oropharyngeal airway in between the boy's teeth. The noisy breaths continued.

Gage cut away the child's shirt, looking for the reason for the dampness staining the boy's clothes. "Pneumo.  
Left side. I can feel it sucking in and out." he told Meyers.

"Only one?"

"Yeah."

"Here's a vasoline dressing." said the man, handing it to Johnny.

Gage slapped it onto the child's chest wound on his back and then wrote down his information onto a red tag.

As they were leaving the car, Meyers asked. "Where's the boy's parents? Front seat's empty."

"Maybe they were walking wounded before anybody got here."

Meyers frowned intensely. "I hope they're found. This kid needs parental consent."

"Roy'll call a police officer into the triage station to cover situations like his to take protective custody. He'll do that with of all unattended minors brought to him." Gage reassured him.

"Really?"

"He's real good that way with things like that. He's got two kids of his own." Johnny said.

The two paramedics reluctantly left the gasping little boy alone in his car to move on to the next one. They left their spray painted marker for Cap to see and left.

Stoker began shouting and hand signalling to some crews over by the worse area of the pileup. Something was happening that only he could see by the semi truck and it was bad.

"Uh, oh.." Johnny noticed, looking up to the hill to where the engineer stood with Captain Stanley.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: A triage kit with tape, tags and vests.

Photo: Roy on the biophone inscba. Photo: Collapsed car and highway sign.  
Photo: Gage opening car door wearing turnout.

Photo: Cap pushing down an HT antennae by engine.

Photo: Car smashed into an obstacle.

Photo: A helicopter in the air over the Ward engine.  
Photo: Another triage kit, with case, markers and color ribbons.

*  
From: "Cory Anda" Date: Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:43 pm Subject: Extended Rescue..

Captain Stanley's voice suddenly came over Johnny's band.  
##Gage! Civilians are being stupid trying to render aid to someone under a pickup truck next to the east end of 580's viaduct overhang. Stoker says they're trying to use an oxyacetylene torch on something directly over him.##

Gage's head snapped up. "It takes all types. Where are the cops when you need em?!" he said in frustration to paramedic Meyers."Let's go." He got on his radio.  
"Gage HT 51 to Engine 51. 10-4. We'll be there in less than one minute.."

##Follow Stoker's flares in a line. They divert around fuel spills. Don't worry about the steaming semi. That truck's been declared Hazmat neutral. Its payload's just milk and the condensate's only thawing frost. You can D/C both your scba apparatuses.##

"Copy that.." answered the first-in team. Happily,  
they dumped their bottles into a conspicuous open spot for easier equipment recovery later on.

Johnny and Meyers picked up their light triage packs and began to run. They stopped only long enough to point out moving victims to the other roving paramedic teams also assigned to search through the piled up cars.

Soon, they were there.

A dusty automobile driver ran up to them, pointing. "A driver's been thrown headfirst into a rotating cement mixer. He's been buried alive under fresh cement. He's entangled in the mixer's motorized agitator.. My friend and I are trying to help him."

"Show me.." said Johnny, his face growing tight. "Has it seized up?"  
he asked about the barrel agitator.

"Yes. The blades aren't turning anymore around the shaft which I think's been cocked at an angle." said the man.

"Great, now get out of here. Make for those two firemen you see on the hill by following along these cherry flares."

"But.."

"It's for your own safety. There's more than enough people here now who can help that man." Gage snapped. Then he noticed the cut over the man's eye. "We'll tend to you, too.  
Take this tag and show it to them." Johnny said, passing off a hasty green tabbed triage tag.

The man hesitated, looking at the other firemen jogging towards them.

Gage gestured urgently. "Don't worry about him. We know what to do. Get yourself out, ok? Please, mister,...move!"

The man went.

Johnny and Meyers were shocked when they turned a corner around the rolled over milk truck and saw the cement mixer. They could see only the victim's left hand and right leg extended and moving out the top of the hopper. His head was partially protruding through a small discharge port on the bottom. And there was a lot of dripping blood.

"Gage HT 51 to Engine 51.. We've a man heavily entrapped and in critical condition inside a construction agitator under hardening cement. I'm declaring an extended rescue.." Gage told Cap.

Realizing the scope of the incident, Hank quickly called Headquarters'  
communications center to land a medical evacuation helicopter near the scene. ##10-4, notifying L.A. and Truck 20 to report to your location.## said Cap.

As Gage and Meyers climbed to the top of the mixer, they encountered a beefy construction man attempting to free the victim by cutting the agitator shaft with a flaming torch. Molten metal from the shaft was flying through the air and landing on top of the moaning man, causing very obvious third degree burns to the exposed paling skin around his neck and back.

"What the h*ll do you think you're doing?! Get away from there!" Meyers said, hauling the torch out of the man's hands. "You're burning him!"

"But I was just trying to get a hole open down to him for you fellas."  
said the worker. "He's bleeding ta death!"

"Are you crazy? There's a ton of fuel spilled around here. Didn't you consider where all your sparks were blowing? You did more harm than good, man. Get outta here. Now!" Gage shut down the torch and flung it away from their victim in disgust.

One of Truck 20's firemen immediately removed the worker from the area.  
The two rescuers could see the victim's upper torso had pinned between the lower half of the mixing unit and the agitator shaft. He was trapped face down, from his head to his waist, under the agitator. His back was bent backwards under the shaft, and agitator blades had impaled three inches into his left shoulder. Johnny could see that the metal pistons would seriously limit the space available to rescuers for cutting operations.

Gage could hear the victim's muffled screams for help.

"Hey, hey. Take it easy. The torch's gone. We got rid of it. Can you breathe ok?" Meyers asked the frightened man.

The man gasped, shaking his head. "N-no. Smothering me.." he gurgled.

The two paramedics positioned themselves on either side of the man's head and discovered that the motion frozen agitator was causing a nasty problem. The cement covering the victim's body had begun to dry, putting pressure on his lungs and diaphragm. And more of it was oozing onto his face as he spat and choked and tried to turn his head away from it.

Meyers and Johnny knelt quickly to scoop wet concrete from around the man's mouth and nose with their gloved hands.

As they also removed cement from around their victim's body, they found his left arm was badly mangled. This was the source of the tremendous bleeding pooling under the mixer. Johnny drew out a tourniquet and used it on the man rapidly. "We need an oxygen tank at our location as fast as possible." he radioed out to Cap.

##It's on the way with Truck 20. They're also carrying a full squad's gear. ETA is half a minute.## Hank promised.

"Understood..." Johnny replied.  
Gasping in effort as he worked to ease the man's breathing difficulty, Johnny looked up to see the heavy rescue truck equipped with a hefty complement of specialty rescue equipment, including hydraulic tools and lifting bags, arriving.

::Good, they're bound to have an exothermic torch for us to use.:: he thought.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Battalion Chief One arrived to the command hill shortly thereafter. He had heard Johnny's declaration of an extended rescue situation. He had received a face-to-face briefing from Cap minutes earlier and had assumed his full incident command.

Cap said to him off channel. "Johnny tried to describe the victim's position in the mixer and.. Well, Chief, you just have to take a look for yourself."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon, Battalion had. "Tricky. What's your plan?" he asked 20's head rescueman and officer.

"Me and my men'll cut that 300 lb. agitator shaft here to create a space between the blades and his chest. It'll give the medics more working room for their I.V.s and gain them better access to determine the extent of his other injuries.." said the helmeted fireman.

"Make it happen, boys." agreed Battalion. Then he knelt down next to Johnny. "How's he doing?"

"He's barely holding, Chief. We've got to get him out of here fast.  
This cement's started drying and it's crushing down on all of his arms and legs." answered Meyers.

"We're working on it." soothed Battalion. Then he looked up. "Here's your medical gear." he said, motioning quickly for the courier on the extrication fire truck to hasten in with his full arm load.

"Great.." said Johnny reaching for the O2 apparatus. He placed the mask over the man's face and began to help him breathe using the ventilator. In spite of the help, the man blacked out.  
"D*mn it. Stay with us, sir. Hang on. We're working hard on getting you out of there."

But the man didn't open his eyes at all.

Truck 20's rescue crews tried to use hydraulic cutters on the agitator shaft. Then they attempted to use hydraulic mini-cutters to sever the blades impaling the victim's body. But the blades and shaft proved to be too thick.

They plied in again with a reciprocating saw.. Still, they had no success.

Finally, they placed a fireproof blanket around the victim and used the exothermic torch to cut the impaling blade. The procedure worked well, but the crew had to stop two minutes later when they became concerned about reburning their victim as they cut closer to his torso.

Battalion was thoughtful. "How about placing a wooden wedge between the blade and his body? A Partner K-12 saw would be a cinch to finish cutting the shaft. Don't you think?"

"That'll work.." agreed the truck officer, motioning for a free fireman to go retrieve a chock from storage.

The firemen soon removed the heavy agitator shaft from the victim's back, but the blade remained impaled inside of his shoulder.

"That hole's big enough. We gotta get in there." Gage fidgetted.  
"He needs fluids yesterday."

"Ok, men. Step back. Let the medics in to work." ordered the chief.

Meyers and Johnny eagerly upended into the mixer, questing for more information with what they could see and feel with their slurry soggy gloves.

They were soon disappointed.

With no blood flow to his severely damaged left arm and with his right arm pinned under his body, the paramedics couldn't establish an IV on the man. And they soon discovered that the cement mixer's U-shaped drum made it nearly impossible to completely assess him from the waist down while he remained entrapped upside down like he was.

Meyers bit his lip. "This is taking too long." he mumbled to Johnny.  
"I know." Gage agreed. "But we don't have much choice except to wait it out."

The crews stepped in once more at a wave from the chief,  
to resume chistling concrete and cutting out twisted metal, bit by bit.

Johnny stayed on the man's head. "Let Meyers patch him in,  
next metal-cooling break. We'll be monitoring him using the EKG so we'll be out of the way except for whoever's ventilating him." he said to the head rescueman.

The firemen nodded. He said. "Maybe all of this concrete's a blessing in disguise."

"How so?" Johnny asked.

"Ironically, although the drying cement's hindering us. It's probably saving his life. His bleeding's being kept in check."

Johnny smiled. "Yeah, let's hope there're no cuts on a leg outside of the ooze, or he'll exsanguinate further and lapse into irreversible shock."

"I'm all for that idea. Raging optimist. Know what I mean?" said the older fireman, giving Johnny an enthusiastic thumbs up.

To ease the rescueman's worries, Johnny echoed the gesture with a soft smile.

-  
A few minutes later, Meyers looked up from his handheld where he had been relaying updates to Roy on the trapped man so DeSoto knew what to tell Dr. Brackett when he arrived at the triage station. "Vitals?"

Gage said. "Pulse at the neck. 120 and thready. Respirations unassisted are eight." he told him. "No reaction to pain. His airway's clear. Hanging upside down like this, everything's running out of his mouth well. But the demand valve's the only thing working for him. The ambu didn't provide enough internal chest pressure to afford him an adequate breath."

Meyers nodded and relayed the findings. Then he looked up. "Brackett's here. Just checked in. He says he's on his way to help us out. ETA in two."

"Thank youUuuu." Gage intoned with a low whistle of gratitude. "Now maybe we'll get the ball rolling."

But things didn't happen that way.

Long after the rest of the car crash scene had been sifted through, hose sprayed down, and cleared of all its injured and dead people, Johnny's team and Truck 20 were still hard at work an hour and a half later...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kel, looked up grimly at Gage and asked. "What's the scope showing now?" he shouted over the noise of dismantlement as the rescue crews struggled to take the cement mixer apart piece by piece from around the man.

Johnny looked up, pulled the stethoscope out of his ears, and then...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Roy helmet scared close.

Photo: Gage extricate man in

Photo: McConnike talk to scba'd

Photo: K-12 cutting close.

Photo: Brackett, Gage with man c-spine car.

Photo: Child being longboarded.

*  
From : Cassidy Meyers Sent : Friday, April 14, 2006 3:53 AM Subject : Aftermath...

Gage sighed.. "I'm seeing peaked T-waves, shortened QT intervals, and some ST segment depressions. He's at a rate of 130 and thready."

"ahhHH,.." Brackett scowled, "Crush injury syndrome's setting in already?"

"Could be just hypovolemia..." Johnny told him.

"But hyperkalemia's a definite possibility in his case. That left arm of his is very close to being completely destroyed. Ok, Johnny. Here's what we'll do. I'll start another I.V. subclavian of Normal Saline. Hand me a 1000cc bag, would ya? Dial it wide open.  
We'll try calcium chloride at 5 mL of 10% solution IV over two minutes.  
The effect should last half an hour to an hour to control any electrolyte induced arrythmias. Add Sodium Bicarbonate 1 mEq/kg piggyback.  
Stop titration of either one if he slips into bradycardia. We're gonna offset any possible rhabdomyolysis even before he starts it."

"Right, doc." Gage nodded, grabbing for the drug box a fireman had brought very close to where the doctor and paramedics were working.

Brackett took a blood pressure reading on the man's thigh.  
"It's holding. The cement's still having that compression effect.  
It's acting like a mast suit." Kel grunted, reconsidering his options.  
"Keep a close eye on his EKG for any bundle branch blocks. He's bound to widen his QRS-s and flatten P-waves if we aren't real careful getting him outta here."

The extrication team milling around the trapped man became quieter,  
overhearing. "He's motion sensitive now?" asked Truck 20's captain.

"Yeah." said Meyers. "But we'll handle changes as they happen and treat for it. He won't arrest on you. Just concentrate on getting him free,  
in one piece, and we'll handle the rest."

The truck captain nodded.

Brackett frowned as he stabbed the needle home and got his subclavian line. "Meyers, let's buffer him with glucose and insulin.  
That way some of the potassium in his blood will shift back into his body cells temporarily. Administer 1-2 amps D50W and 5-10 U regular insulin IV. Once we get him out of here, we won't waste time with an intubation. He's maintaining just fine the way he is on that ambu, now that the cement's been thinned out."

The fireman, breathing for the man, agreed with Brackett's observation.

Ten minutes later, after carefully disentangling and extricating the victim from the mixer, the rescuing personnel rapidly assessed him.

"He's still out, boys. He won't need any morphine." Kel told the two paramedics as they cut away the man's crusty clothing.

A severe laceration to the man's buttocks was so large that Brackett had to use both hands to shovel hardening cement from inside of the injury to check its full damage extent. Then they immobilized him onto a long board.

Johnny itemized what he found for Brackett. "Right arm, humerus fracture. Dislocated left ankle. Just that glut laceration, doc. These welder burns here, and then just what you see on that left arm. Still no pulse in it."

Meyers quickly splinted what they found, using volunteers.

"Go ahead and straighten it out." Kel ordered. "Turn that palm up. How about now?"

"I've got refill.." Gage said as he saw blood begin to ooze out of raw abrasions on the nearly severed hand's fingertips.

"Good enough. Watch the monitor. If he goes abnormal EKG wise,  
boys, titrate a second dose of calcium chloride to turn it around and flush the I.V. afterwards." Brackett said.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By a miracle, the man didn't die on the way to Rampart despite his being trapped for nearly two hours, hanging upside down, with critical injuries, inside a crushing, suffocating mound of raw, wet cement.

Roy, Johnny and Dr. Brackett, all conferenced in the hallway once the helicopter crew had departed with their unloaded gurney.

Gage made a face. "He's in for seven hours of surgery?"

"Yep. And I think we'll manage to save his bad arm, too." said Brackett, grinning. "At least Joe seems to think so. His angiograms came back as completely workable."

"That's incredible. Johnny told me the whole story on how it happened.  
And I still don't believe it." said Roy, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh, he's got a few rough spots to get through before he'll completely heal." Brackett grinned. "His doctor will have to monitor him for internal infection for four years at least, because lime from all that cement's been found to have entered his bloodstream."

"The effects'll linger that long?" Johnny gaped.

"Yes. Lime's caustic to tissue. And bone. Necrosis will still be an ongoing risk for him. It can act like battery acid that can concentrate and cause damage anywhere inside his body for a long while yet. But eventually, it'll accumulate as precipitate into his larger bones, out of harm's way."

Roy whistled. "Sounds like it was one a h*ll of a rescue, Johnny. I'm sorry I missed it." he said with a horrified awe.

"It was a real challenge, Roy. We had obstacles every inch of the way.  
Our victim's body position, the severity of his injuries, the inability to immobilize his cervical spine, the hardening cement that was compressing him, the tight quarters we had in which to treat him and from which to cut him free.." Johnny ticked off on each of his fingers.

Brackett waved farewell when he heard his name being summoned by intercom to handle a walk-in case. He melted back into the hospital crowds.

"See ya, doc." said Roy, lifting his HT. "L.A. This is squad 51. We're available."

##Squad 51.##

Johnny waved goodbye to the E.R. doctor belatedly. "Where'd Dr. Brackett go? He tells that rescue way better than I can."

"Duty called." smiled Roy mildly. "Come on, let's go. I'm sure the guys'll be more than happy to be your captive audience once we get back to the station."

"Say, yeah. Maybe I can...submit this one up as a new extrication problem for all the teaching manuals..." Johnny said, his eyes lighting up.

"Truck 20 already beat you to it." DeSoto told him.

Johnny blinked. "What makes you say that?"

"I saw them taking pictures of the truck and cement mixer after you had left in the ambulance with your victim for the landing pad. And the chief was there drinking up all the nitty gritty details the extrication cap was telling him."

"Oh." said Gage, crestfallen. "That's .. that's too bad. Oh, well." he shrugged,  
making for the squad. "I wonder what's for lunch.." he smiled, putting both hands into his pockets. He whistled an aimless tune as he ambled away.

Roy rolled his eyes, and followed him. Unbidden, his stomach began to growl in earnest. "I'm beginning to wonder that myself.." he mumbled,  
strolling out the ambulance entrance doors after his partner.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Paramedic with a car pile up victim.

Photo: Hyperkalemia on an ECG.  
Photo: Marco using jaws on a car.

Photo: Ambu bag on your face.

Photo: Johnny, Roy and Brackett in Rampart hallway.

Photo: Roy and Johnny driving the squad in the rain.

*  
From: "patti keiper" Date: Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:16 pm Subject: Water Day.. :)

It was finally the long awaited Water Day.

All the gang were in their turnouts and helmets in front of the station, lined up along the brick wall framing the open driveway. And across the lawn.

Engine 51 and the squad were both pulled out under the sun with all their gleaming equipment doors ajar so milling kids could explore inside of them at will. Gage had set out a training resuscitator filled only with air so the older kids could try out the cool demand valve thumb trigger and mask on the manikin that he had thrown out onto the grass next to the yellow street side hydrant.

The sight of what looked like kids working a medical call only served to attract more customers. Johnny began smiling at his own cleverness at the idea. It was his idea also to post a sign right next to Cap's ticket table that already answered the most frequently asked parent and child question. It simply said. 'No, we don't have a fire pole. Sorry.'

Marco Lopez was already hard at work, entertaining the kids at a spare picnic table, putting out lighter fuel fires inside of jiffy pop pans using a fire extinguisher and letting his young charges do the same soon after.

Every so often, an appreciative motorist driving by would honk and everybody would look up from whatever they were doing and wave back, especially the bathing suited kids manning the red reel line Roy had pulled out for all the water games.

And above them all, snapping in the brisk, warm summer breeze,  
was the banner Johnny had designed for the flagpole, declaring that Saturday as Water Day.

For effect, Chet Kelly had rigged up four HTs on monitor in a square around the driveway at its corners so the sounds of active fire station broadcasts reverberated with nifty delated echoes around those still waiting their turns and all the mothers standing at the admissions table, where Cap was collecting the three dollar donation fees. Each mother or father was eagerly handing over for this,  
the first ever, Station 51 Water Day event.

Marco laughed from where he stood by the squad, guarding all the medical gear. He pointed to the advertisement banner flying beneath the state flag near Johnny and himself. "Where'd you come up with that idea, Johnny? I think the symbolism's kinda neat."

"Oh, that? Really? Heh. I guess." Johnny said, trying to not look at it.

Roy rubbed his chin thoughtfully as yet another kid took over his low pressure fire hose to play the Great Chicago-fire-save-Mrs.-O'Leary's-cow game. "Yeah. I wonder how many people have made the connection that your water drop logo is from all the 'San Bernadino Waste Management is your friend' posters."

Chet laughed with delight. "How's that for plagarism?" he teased.

Gage glared at Kelly and didn't deign to comment further.

Mike Stoker, standing as a guide near the engine's open doors, did. "You know, I thought things would be total chaos with us hosting all of today's activities so close to the street."

"Nah, Stoker, you got it all wrong." said Chet, helping some more kids color fire safety rules cartoon pages and directed others to draw even more fire colored chalk hopscotch games onto the driveway's baked surface. "Chaos doesn't mean that things'll go wrong. Chaos actually means..The Chiefs Have Arrived On Scene."

The rest of the gang chuckled loudly as they played with their laughing young charges.

"Shhh," Roy cautioned Chet. "Not so loud. Cap could've heard that." he warned Kelly.

"No way, DeSoto." said the helmeted Marco as he gave yet another kid a try on his reel line fire hose to knock down the hinged toy flames surrounding the wooden cutout of the Chicago fire cow.  
"He's so busy counting money to see if it's enough to fund Chet and Stoker's mystery project, that he's tuning us out completely."

"You better hope so." laughed Gage, glancing over at Hank who was just about overwhelmed with eager parents wanting to pay "admission" for their kids.

Roy rubbed his eyes free of water spray. "Aren't you glad we struck a deal with the arco refinery so all of these families can park their cars across the street without troubling traffic?"

"That was my idea." said Chet proudly. "Last thing I want to see is another car accident for at least a little while."

Stoker, meanwhile, was telling jokes while he set each interested child behind the wheel of the Ward so they could pull the airhorn chain. He said to his latest child. "What kinds of ears do pumpers have?"

The little boy gave up after only a few tries at an answer.

Chet piped up from the lawn. "I know the answer to that one, Mike.  
You're so predictable. The answer's 'engineers' little boy."

The child laughed so hard that the oversized helmet on his head almost jiggled off his head.

Attracted by the slow, rubber necking traffic and the sight of a lot of helium balloons tied in bundles and held down by spare helmets around Station 51's front lawn, Vince pulled up in his squad car for a visit.

The burly white helmeted cop grinned up a storm when he read the flag banner for the reason why there was such a festive atmosphere.  
"Hey boys. What a nice idea for a fundraiser. Water Day, huh?  
Does the city know about this yet? There's kind of a drought still going on."

"Yes, we have our permit permission slip. It's right here."  
Cap's face slacked off into instant mortification as he thanked another young mother for paying her two children's admissions. "Are you here because of a traffic complaint against us?"

"Nope." said Vince. "It's just natural born human curiosity working this time, Hank. All the drivers are on their own today. It's a weekend. I figure they should be used to traffic jams and surprise holdups happening on those days by now." he winced when a particularly close blast of hose water from DeSoto's direction sprayed at him on the wind. "Whoa." he said, backing up a few steps.

"Sorry, Vince.." hollered Roy, grabbing onto the hands of a little kid still mastering the hand bar valve on the reel hose he held between his knees.

"That's ok. That water felt good. It's hot out here this afternoon."  
chuckled the policeman. " And I'm sure that both your of own kids are deathly afraid of getting in a water gun fight with you!"

"So right. I use that to gauge my efficacy as a real fireman." DeSoto grinned at him toothily.

Without being asked, Vince took advantage of the station's event on his beat and decided to take a few minutes to help out. He got Bonnie going on a game of doggy tag with a couple of kids starting to get frustrated with waiting in line for the engine tour.

Two children nearby began discussing Bonnie's station duties.

"They use her to keep crowds back." insisted one youngster.

"No, they don't!" said another angrily. "She's just for good luck."

A third child brought the argument to a close. "They use the dog," she said firmly, "..to find the fire hydrant." she said crossly.

Their mothers, monitoring nearby, laughed at the charming misconception.

A few minutes later, Cap got up when the last family group had gotten their triage tag admission bracelets tied around their wrists and he wandered slowly over to Charlie the mechanic, who was helping the gang out with facts and trivia about the vehicle bay's closet scattered gear and offering complete encyclopedic litanies on both the fire trucks.

Charlie had left his maintenance Dodge, which looked very much like Squad 51, in the back yard parking lot so it wouldn't be confused for being the real one. He sighed expansively, sharing yet another work related story of his days when he was a fireman before he became a mechanic. "When I got on the job our oldest piece was a 1958 Mack. I loved the idea of driving a truck that was actually older than I was. It was an open cab, and we called the steering 'armstrong' steering, because it was so freakin difficult to steer! It came with a full cab but the chief at the time thought it was 'wimpy' for firefighters to be protected from the elements so he had it cut off! Heh." Then aside, Charlie leaned into those of the gang listening in. "And you wondered why your ol' Crown was made that way? He's why. They told me it cost $2000 bucks to shave off yours."

"No way." said Stoker in horror. "Wasn't it hard to do that to her?"

"Not really. It was a reserve piece when I got on, and ideal for driver training. It was in service one night when I was assigned as the driver during one of those torrential, numerous call summer storm nights. It was raining so hard the wipers couldn't keep up and I remember half-standing so I could see over the windshield. I had the door open so the water could run out. One of the best memories of my career. Wouldn't trade it for anything."  
he laughed.

Stoker shouted out from the driver's door of Engine 51 where he was helping kids climb around the engine cab. "I don't miss her."  
he said empathetically. "I hated getting wet."

Gage crowed. "Oh, so that's why you became an engineer."  
he quipped. "I've always wondered about that." Johnny smiled at him.

"Very funny. I did it for the better money actually." said the shy Stoker. Then he shot forward inside the engine. "No..no no no.  
Don't key up the radio mic. L.A. will wonder who the crazy caller is and send out the looney bin truck after you. Complete with straight jackets." he goggle eyed his captive audience of kids.

They all laughed at him, pointing at his odd and funny face.

By the time the day was over, nearly one thousand dollars had been raised.

"Wow.." breathed Captain Stanley as he locked up the cash box. "I think I'll store this in the office." he said, while the others were cleaning up the lawn of decorations. He saw that Roy was washing away any chalk mark driveway artwork and games that hadn't yet been scuffled away by the wind or the many pounding tiny feet.

One last mother and her son had lingered.

"Ma'am. Did you forget something?" Johnny asked her.  
He had already handed out several pairs of forgotten shoes and a beach towel that someone had left draped over the bushes.

"Oh, no. It's nothing like that. May my son use the restroom? We've still got to get across town."

"Oh, sure.. sure." Johnny told her, holding out his hand towards the open garage. He raised his voice. "Chet?!"

"Yeah?" called out Kelly from where he was stuffing the manikin away into a closet.

"Can you show this nice young lady and her boy the head? It's for him."

"Sure thing, Johnny." said the curly haired fireman, now divested of his helmet and turnout coat. He led the two towards the locker room door and safely around where Mike was backing the two station vehicles, one by one, back into the yawning shelter of the apparatus bay.

Chet Kelly returned to join them all in the driveway while they watched Roy casually spray the reel line around, scrubbing the pavement. Once or twice, just for fun, DeSoto made them dance, using the water stream,  
along a hopscotch or two while they were talking to each other until they caught on to what he was trying to pull.

Finally, all the cleanup was complete. Bonnie ran into the garage carrying the last bouquet of floating balloons and Marco helped her to let them go to float up to the ceiling in the kitchen.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cap was about to close the main bay door for the night when a frantic female shout startled them all. It was the mother,  
sounding embarrassed, yelling for some help from inside the bathroom.

The gang hurried in. Gage was so intent with finding out what was wrong, that he left his helmet on his head.  
"Thank you for coming. I just wasn't sure what else to do." said the red faced mother. "I only had my back turned for a minute. I only wanted to wash my own hands at the sink."

"What happened?" asked Cap.

"You'll see. I still can't believe it myself." she said.

They followed her down the short wood panelled hall, to the bathroom, where a sobbing little boy had his arm and head inside the toilet bowl, stuck almost up to his shoulder. Roy and Johnny looked at each other and just smiled.

Roy sat right down cross-legged on the floor, eye level with the little boy. "Wanted to see where the water went, did ya?"

The boy nodded his tear streaked face.

Gage asked Cap if they still had any cooking oil. Hank nodded his head. "Marco. Go grab it. That and a toilet plunger." Stanley ordered.

"I already tried soap. I think I tried just about everything in here to get him free." sighed the mom. "Even someone's shaving cream."  
Lopez returned. "Want a silent called, Cap?"

Hank shook his head minisculely to spare the mother more embarrassment.

The mother was making a face. "He hates the idea of getting exposed to germs. I have no idea what came over him to do THIS kind of stunt." she snapped.

"Son, I cleaned the bathroom myself a few hours ago with a very strong germicide. Nothing's gonna get you sick." Hank chuckled at the inverted child.

Sighing, the boy shook his head in relief.

Gage told Marco to hand the small jar of Crisco over to him, "I have some of that 'special fireman's oil additive.' that we use all the time, right here..." he winked at the boy.

The child looked at him with interest, intently watching Johnny as he took a small white plastic bottle from his pocket. Gage made a show of "adding" it to the jar of oil.

Gage knew that the child was tensed up, and probably involuntarily, had his hand in a fist. Whenever the mom tried to pull his arm out, the anticipation of pain would cause him to scream and tense up more.

The mom, not being able to bear causing pain to her son, had then stopped. Johnny knew if he could get the child distracted and calm, he'd relax the arm and the fist, and Roy could probably then maneuver his arm out of the toilet's wash hole.

::Stoker's standby Plan B of course, would work too, but that would definitely do some unnecessary damage to the toilet fixture. K-12's are anything but subtle.:: Johnny mused to himself.

Gage put on his best paramedic smile. "There are magic ingredients in the oil now. It's gonna get you unstuck real fast." he said, while Roy rubbed a handful of oil down the boy's arm.

At the same time DeSoto was feeling the angles of the child's arm, trying to picture how it was turned inside the drain hole and to check to see if it still had a pulse in it.

Johnny just talked to the little boy, keeping up a steady stream of banter while he kept smiling eyes on the child, making sure that the boy's eyes were on him exclusively, and not on his trapped arm.

Roy had gotten it out to the elbow, when the boy screamed in pain.

The mother jumped.

Roy immediately stopped probing, holding the boy's face out of the water when his head dropped down in a reaction.

Gage took a breath, and studied the boy's face closely.  
Johnny kept talking. "That only felt funny, it didn't really hurt did it?"

The boy sobbed. "My neck's getting tired."

"It's ok.." said Roy. "I got your head. I won't let you drown on us.  
Don't worry." he soothed, trying not to laugh. "Stoker, could you see if you can plunge down some of this water away from him so he feels more comfortable?"

"Sure." said Mike and he gingerly sent the remaining bowl's water down the hole around the boy's arm using the toilet plunger Marco had found in the locker room.

Gage soon continued where he and the child had left off.

The mother was getting frustrated. "I don't care if you have to smash the toilet. I'll pay for any damage. Just get my son out!"  
But Cap knew there were risks involved, and hoped to avoid that scenario. "We'll get him out, ma'am. We just have to wait for his muscles to relax a little. That's all." said Hank mildly. "Here.  
Have a seat on this changing bench."

The mother's frustration caused the boy to tense up again.

And Johnny had to get him calmed right back down again.

At one point, the child asked him. "Why do you have a helmet on in the firehouse?"

Johnny laughed, "I must look silly with a helmet on in the bathroom!  
You should see me when I take a shower..." he said, bugged eyed.

The little boy laughed, and at that moment, Roy got the rest of his arm out. "I got it.. There.. that wasn't so bad now, was it?"

"No.." said the boy with disgust as he held his soggy arm out for Marco and Chet to dry with a few bathroom towels.

"Did you hurt your neck or head at all when you fell in?"  
Johnny asked, gingerly feeling the vertebrae in the child's neck and through the boy's hair as he felt for potential problems.

"I'm fine. Just let me outta here." said the boy, shooting to his feet. "Mom. I'll wait for you by the flagpole." he said crossly,  
now fully embarrassed about what had happened to him.  
When the small family was leaving across the street for their car, which was the last one left in the lot, Gage tipped his firehat to the mother, and he teased her, "So...,Mom..., where does the water go? We'll be free of charge if you answer that one for your son." he grinned.

Cap smacked Gage's arm in a mock discipline for being mean.

As the mother opened the green Matador's door, he heard the boy asking her just that same question.

"Mom.. could you 'splain it to me? Please?" he begged.  
"I only wanted to know."

The slamming car door closed on her answer. Soon, they were gone with a squeal of tires on the boulevard.  
Roy and Johnny laughed as they joined the others still standing in the driveway.

"So, what was the magic oil additive?" DeSoto asked.

Johnny took the white bottle out of his pocket, "Tylenol!"

DeSoto told him. "You should have given it to the mother."

Then Chet asked sarcastically amused, "So, you think this story will make the front page on this month's Firefighter's Magazine?"

Gage replied, "Oh, h*ll, yeah! We were d*mned heroic. Ouch.  
I think I lost all the feeling in my legs sitting on the floor like that."  
he said rubbing his thighs.

"That's gotta count for something." said Roy to Cap and the others,  
who were immensely enjoying the growing night's soft breezes and their rising cases of sunburn.

They stood in silence for a while, smiling to themselves, admiring the twinkling summer stars.

Then Chet asked, with a straight face. "But Gage, seriously.  
Where does the water go?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Station 51's front sign.

Photo: A water hose squirting out at you.

Photo: Kids squealing in joy while getting wet.

Photo: Charlie the mechanic in street clothes with Roy.

Photo: Water Day kids games. O'Leary's cow.

Photo: Kids peek into engine compartment.

Photo: Roy and Johnny on a bathroom detail.

Photo: Kid stuck in the toilet.

Photo: A toilet cross section getting plunged.

Photo: Stoker, Chet and Marco cleaning engine parts.

Midi Music File: 'Any Second Now' by Depeche Mode.

*  
From: Jeff Seltun  
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:41:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Chaos Night..

Rampart was anything but quiet. Dixie was fielding five ambulance patients as they poured in the red flashing light filled entrance. "How many more?"  
she asked the latest set of attendants bearing in yet another bus accident victim.

Sam, a cauliflower eared veteran, sighed and shrugged.

McCall grumbled under her breath. "Ok,. uh. Let me take a look at them all again before I start giving out destinations.. Hang on.."

Dixie blinked when she realized that all of them were broken legs. "Front end crash?" she guessed, mumbling to herself. Then she ran plans off out loud as she awaited the two doctors she requested by emergency page.  
"He can wait, she can wait, she can wait.. Ah, tib/fib? Let's wait, too."

"Right here in the hallway, Miss McCall?" asked one of Station 10's paramedics.

"Yep. We're triaging here since you didn't have time to there." she told him. "Keep your victim's I.V. TKO. His EKG's looking good." Dixie looked up. "Who's got the short of breath?"

Station 99's medics raised their active rain wrapped HTs.  
"Us. We do."

"Ok, you first. Into Treatment Four. I've got a defib set up and an intubation tray. Dr. Early will be right with you."  
she promised.

"Dixie? What do you have?" shouted Kel, jogging out of an opening elevator.

"Bus crash. Transfers from Mount Sinai Hospital. They're at capacity. I've got four lower leg fractures, and one possible cardiac slated for Joe in Four." Dixie told him,  
handing off her phone notes that still had wet ink from all of her scribbling. It had been only four minutes since she received word that her department would be receiving the overflow.

The waiting teams of paramedics were patient, keeping up on their vitals sets as the two organized their response.

"Ok..." said Brackett. Then he looked up. "Joe. There's an SOB in Four."

"He conscious?" asked Early, hurrying out of the cafeteria annex corridor near them, where he had been eating a very late meal.

"No.." said Dixie and one of 99's medics at the same time.

"All right. Where's his run sheet?" asked Joe.

"Under his pillow." said the second paramedic through the door he had been holding ajar in anticipation of Joe's arrival.

"Ok, get it out for me, wouldya boys?" Joe smiled.

"Thanks, Joe. Sorry about dinner.." shouted Kel as he checked the run sheets on two of Dixie's wall parked gurney patients.

"No problem. Guess it's time to start earning my pay." said Early.

The white haired doctor disappeared into the red priority room.

Brackett looked at the trauma on the legs of two, seeing blood stains under their sheets. "Surgery for these." he pointed. "I've got surgeons on standby up in the suites. The head OR nurse'll intercept you. She goes by the name of Carol Evans."

"Evans? Right.." said a newer paramedic from 24's.

Dixie couldn't help but smile as she remembered all over again that her good friend and ex-second in command of the ER had been promoted upstairs only last month. "And I wish her all the luck.." McCall whispered warmly under her breath.

"You said something?" Brackett asked as he listened to some fast breath sounds on his remaining two patients.

"Nothing critical. You want these two in Three? It's clear. I just had the headache case moved to the floor." Dixie told Kel.

"Yeah, you read my mind. That room's closest to the portable X-ray."  
Dr. Brackett said. "Is Mike on the way?"

"Yeah,.. He said he's hitting some traffic.." said Dixie.

Kel frowned as he checked the pedal pulses and Babinski's on the two waiting to transfer into the room. "Wouldn't that be ironic if he's driving by the scene of this very same accident?"

"I'm trying not to think about it." McCall said. "Uh, oh." she said,  
glancing up at another flash of red lights as they pulled up at the ER entrance and killed their sirens. She saw two very, very sooty firefighter paramedics get out of a Mayfair in a hurry, carrying two large bore I.V.s. "What's 110's doing here? I heard Mercy copy their call." she grumbled.

Sharon Walters apologized. "Sorry, Dix. Mercy's just declared an all full status. I was going to tell you but..." said the dark doe eyed,  
light blue smocked young nurse intercepting the new team at the doors.

"Oh, terrific.." Kel said. "Dix, would you--?"

"Yep." said McCall, giving the order for the two remaining leg cases to go into Treatment Three. "Gimme your orders you wrote down. I'll have the labs started ahead of time on these two for you."

Dr. Brackett went running for the new arriving patient, who was dark with ash and being bagged. "Is he a burn case?" he asked the two paramedics.

"No. Smoke inhalation." said one of the paramedics. "He was converted from full arrest four minutes ago."

"Couldn't get a tube down?"

"Didn't have time. He was a load and go right now. Orders from our Battalion Chief. We were lucky enough just to get these I.V.'s in,  
doc." said the gasping exhausted, smoke stained firefighter.

"How big was your fire?"

"It's a crack house. Single story. This guy's got a friend still coming. He was a little out of touch with reality due to better living through chemistry but he was conscious and stable." said 110's senior medic.

Brackett sighed, painfully aware of a growing problem with Rampart's own available remaining bedspaces.  
"Ok, take him into One. I'll join you. Sharon.. have respiratory therapy called to bring down a respirator for him. Looks like I'll have to intubate him myself." said Brackett. "Then call the administrators and let them know about our own rapidly diminishing patient bed capacity. Get an exact count of how many we have left and let me know directly!"

"Yes, doctor." Walters said swiftly as she held the door open for the fire case and Dr. Brackett both.

The hospital staff began to hasten around Dr. Brackett, settling into a new mode of activity without having to be prompted.

Automatically, L.A. County Fire Department's air fleet was notified of a possible re-routing relay operation, from Rampart's parking lot, for the moment the hospital was declared full.

The only other option after that was flights out of the city into the surrounding suburbs to all of the Level Two trauma centers.  
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Dr. Brackett murmured, "or all the fire departments in the area will have to take on those extra long transports themselves untilizing the private ambulance services."

Kel Brackett shouted the moment the doors closed shut on all of his room's staff and his fire case. He had glanced at the EKG monitor Walters just hooked up. "Boys, stick around a minute." he told Squad 110. "I'm seeing--"

"Doctor.. he's in full arrest.." said Sharon, handing the paddles over to Kel.

The two paramedics took over the man's ambu bag and chest compressions.

Dr. Brackett gelled his paddles and drove down the first shock to the man's clammy skin. ::Dixie. I hope you're faring with your cases better than I am right now. My batting average is awful.:: thought the sweating doctor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dixie had her hands full in Treatment Three. One of her leg cases' morphine dose had worn off and it was taking everything she and two orderlies had to keep the large man on the bed. She told a passing nursing assistant, who had run into the room at the commotion,  
to call security for extra help.

McCall looked up, with an angry thought, even as her voice began a calm, placating reassurance she hoped would relax the man.  
::Doctor Morton. Where the h*ll are you?:: she demanded privately.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doctor Morton hit the ER entrance doors at a dead run, slamming his palm into the emergency release switch to make the doors fly open faster. "All right. Where's the worst?"

Five sets of fingers pointed down the hallway. Mike skidded to a halt,  
his Levi jacket still on, and it was then he saw the retreating backs of two security guards rushing into Treatment Three. He followed them there, moving fast.

"Doctor!" yelled Dixie. "This guy has bilateral leg fractures. He's not combative. Only in pain."

"I got him!" said Morton, drawing up a fast injection of MS into a syringe.

"His I.V.'s gone..." Dixie said, holding the man's fighting head.

"Then we'll have to do this the hard way.."

"I.M.?"

"Yeah.. Hold him down people.. Tightly. Dixie, cut away his pants."

McCall did so as the man grunted and screamed and tried to throw off both of his splints.

Morton delivered the narcotic, double dose into the man's hip, and rubbed it. And then he helped the four men hang onto the man while they all waited for the medication to take effect. "How's victim number one?" Mike gasped, looking over his left shoulder at the other gurney in the room.

"Stable.." said Dixie, backing away to recheck that person's vitals status. "She doesn't have spiral fractures like he does."

"Just how many new people did we get in the last fifteen minutes?"  
Morton asked sarcastically, getting concerned despite his frustration.

Dixie sighed, trying to catch her breath. "Five from a bus crash.  
One from a house fire. Who knows how many more we'll be getting.  
Mercy's full and so's Mount Sinai."

Morton whistled under his breath. "Helicopters on standby?"

"Yes. The fire department's been notified." McCall answered.

"Where's Joe and Kel?"

"Joe's with a possible cardiac in Four. Don't know where Kel is. Last I saw, he was working over 110's redirected SI case in the hallway." Dixie replied.

"Ok, first things first. This guy's gotta settle down. Boys, go ahead and strap him down. I'm authorizing restraints for his own safety." ordered Morton to the orderlies and the security guards.

They did so. A minute later, the man sighed and passed out and Dixie automatically opened his airway and slapped on an oxygen mask. "How much did you give him?" she asked with wide eyes.

"Fifteen milligrams." Morton grinned openly.

Dixie let out a surprised look of admiration and shook her head ruefully.

"He's a big boy..." said Morton. "Milt, go ahead and put in his oral airway. Take his vital signs and give me what you got."  
Then he dismissed the security pair. "Thanks. We'll call you for the next one." he told them bruskily as he got to closer work on his two patients.

The two guards departed, adjusting their uniforms and finger combing their hair back into place before exiting the room.

-  
Station 51 was quiet by comparison.

The gang was....

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Dixie, Kel and Sharon Walters discussing cases.

Photo: Joe and Kel looking at a cardiac case.

Photo: Morton, fighting with a man on a gurney.

Photo: Dixie McCall on the red crisis phone.

************************************************** From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy Date: Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:28 pm Subject: Sweet Tooth.

....just finishing up with the dinner dishes. Stoker and Kelly had long since disappeared into the bowels of the locker room, where they had set up handyman's tools and of all things, a sewing machine.

Johnny could hear it echoing clearly around the ceiling in the large bay surrounding the fire vehicles. And his curiosity was nearly getting the best of him...for the second time.

Roy noticed his discomforture. "Oh, now don't go starting that up again. Cap'll eat you for a snack for sure."

Gage abandoned his soggy dish towel and snagged another dry, crisply folded one from the utensil drawer to replace it while he dried the last pot. "Can a guy help it if he's curious about just what the heck his friends are working on? Aren't you dying to find out just what kind of contraption is so good that it makes a full Battalion Chief order up a new fundraiser event, our Water Day, just to finance it?"

"No." said Roy, blandly, pulling the rubber stopper out of the sink. The water there started gurgling with a noisy suck down the drain. "We're finished here. How about some ice cream everybody?"

"Here. Here." said all the rest of the gang appreciatively.

Even Bonnie barked from her place on one of the bright yellow orange varnished kitchen chairs.

"Ok, I'll dish them up." said Roy, smiling. He pointedly ignored his partner's growing restlessness about the preverbial project carrot, dangling just out of sight of his nose, in the other room.  
"Cap? Chocolate or vanilla?" DeSoto asked, looking up.

"You need to ask? What color is my coffee in the morning?" he gruffed.

"Brown."  
"White." said both Roy and Gage at the same time.

Marco, working on a crossword puzzle nearby, started chuckling.  
"Shows how observant you two are." he teased. "Roy, he wants chocolate. Cold enough to stand a spoon in it. Just like the java he pours into his mug and always leaves in the freezer for a few minutes before he drinks it."

Johnny made a face. "Eeoow. Cap... Iced coffee?" he shivered.

Roy opened the freezer, found Cap's chilling coffee pour about which they had all been pondering, and handed it to him. "Sure, best thing since Sunday morning breakfast sometimes. Especially in the summer.  
Would you be drinking hot coffee with a sunburn as bad as Cap's?" he whispered on the side to his partner, pointing even as Hank rubbed an itch gingerly on a still painful ear.

"Uh,... NoooOO." Johnny said, his voice moving up a scale. "Actually, I think I'd rather prefer lemonade, heh, heh." he said, rubbing a few fingernails on his water drop dotted uniform shirt to polish them.

"We don't have any." said Roy, tightening his lips into a scowl.  
"And quit fidgetting. You're making me nervous."

Johnny threw up his hands, stalked over to the couch, scooping up Bonnie along the way, and he plunked down onto the leather couch,  
starting to stroke her cinnamon and black streaked coat aggressively, *  
much to her obvious delight. "Oh for Pete's sake, guys. Doesn't anybody even care what Frankenstein-ian invention those two are crafting up in the changing room?!" he said to the room at large.

Nobody answered. They were all enjoying Johnny's comical reactions too much to end it so soon.

Roy finally offered up a tidbit. "Whatever it is," he said, licking frosty but melting Baskin Robbins off of his fingers. "We get to take it into Rampart for the next stage of testing tonight. It's gonna be done by Brackett himself if he's not tied up." DeSoto told Gage.

Johnny's hand on Bonnie's back stopped stroking and the tiny yorkie yipped in dismay, shoving her nose back under his palm eagerly to demand a resumption of attention. "Oh, sorry, girl." said Gage, guiltily plying in once more. "What's gonna be done?"

"Hush, Gage. You'll see it at the end of your next patient call after you get in to resupply." Hank said with finality. "Honestly? Your nosing's getting more annoying than my kids' nagging at me to buy them something from the new mall one of these days." said Cap, accepting his bowl from Roy with a smile. "Thanks, Roy."

"Anytime.." DeSoto whispered, thoroughly enjoying Johnny's self made predicament. "And yeah, I'll get you some Solarcaine for your ears then, too."

"Thanks. You read my mind." Cap said appreciatively.

"I'm a good paramedic." Roy told him.

"I would sure hope so." Hank fired back. "Or you wouldn't be working here."

Right then, Stoker and Kelly walked briskly into the kitchen. "Ah ha!"  
said Chet in discovery. "I thought I smelled Cap's coffee curdling in the cold. It IS time for dessert. Anything left?"

"Tons." said Roy. "Help yourselves." he told them.

Chet rubbed his hands together and cleaned them free of what looked suspiciously like glue to Johnny on a damp dish towel. "I put them both in the rear squad compartment, Roy. Inside a spare stokes."

"Ok, I won't forget they're there." replied the sandy haired paramedic, putting the finishing touches of his own two scoops of both vanilla and chocolate into his carved wooden bowl.

Bark! said Bonnie.

"Oh, yeah.." said Roy, setting the ice cream crusted scoop down onto a saucer for Bonnie to enjoy.

The dog was out from under Johnny's hands in an instant.

Chet burst out laughing. "Roy, that's mean. What if her tongue gets stuck?"

"I rinsed it a little.." DeSoto told him. "What do you take me for? A sadist?"

"Yes." said Johnny. "The worst kind for not sharing privileged information..."  
he hissed through his lips as he jerked a pro-offered ice cream bowl out of his grinning partner's hands.

Roy didn't rise to the bait. "Patience is a virtue..." he said, holding up a lecturing index finger. "You'll see everything soon enough. And you're gonna love it." DeSoto promised him.

"Yeah... I do." piped up Marco.

"Not you, too..." Johnny glared in irritation at Lopez.

"They demo'd it for me this afternoon in between kids during a pause in all the water games. I think it's a really, really good idea.." Lopez said, slurping up his ice cream as only a hose jockey could.

Gage glommed onto the hint. "AhhhhHHhh. It's a device of some kind. Something that a firefighter's gonna be using eventually." Johnny smiled brightly, finally thinking himself the cleverest of all firemen.

"Duhhh." said Chet. "What else would we have fundraised for in a firehouse?"  
said the curly haired Irishman sarcastically.

Johnny's face fell into irritated dismay and got even worse when Cap laughed hugely out of his newspaper.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was hours later, and the gang was deep in slumber when the automatic lights came on, rocketting them out of bed and into their attached suspenders and boots.

.OoowwwwWWWwww. ##Station 51. Foam 127. Station 9. Tanker fire. At the intersection of 101 and Riverside. 101 and Riverside. Time out: 0306.##

"What time is it, Cap?" sniffed a sleepy Chet.

"Listen up, you twit. Sam just said it over the airwaves."  
Hank replied, equally fuzzy as both men rushed for the trucks.  
"And for that, I should make you enter this one into the log book for lat-- oww." Cap winced as he bumped a sunburned shoulder against the doorframe as he went out after the others.

Kelly dashed under his arm as Hank froze in pain. "You shoulda worn sunscreen like I told ya, Cap!" Chet said gleefully.

"Mother's keeper.." muttered Hank as he yanked open the Ward's passenger side door.

Station 51 rolled out.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon, they were very near. And Cap had received an update.  
He thumbed the truck to truck mic. "Guys.. I've just been told it's a diesel truck. Overturned. Possibly propane." he advised everybody and the squad.

##10-4, Cap.## said Johnny through the patch. ::Oo, this'll be a fast one if we don't have any serious injuries. Then it's back deep into slumberland for all of us..:: he thought happily.

Hank's voice boomed out once more on the main channel.  
"Don't get out until we're all sure what we're facing!" he ordered.

As the Ward and Dodge turned onto 101, the gang could see smoke, but no fire up on the Interstate.

::That's odd.:: thought Cap to himself, running through his options on how to fight a truck fire when it couldn't be seen so very well in the night's utter darkness. ::Huh. It would have to hit lightpoles:  
he sighed. He toggled L.A. "L.A., Engine 51..."

##Engine 51, this is L.A.##

"Respond Light Truck 90 to our location. Mile marker....34. Eastbound."

##10-4. 90's ETA is six minutes.##

Hank held up his glove for Stoker to hold them off a goodly distance from the roiling black smoke to keep a very healthy and safe breathing margin. He got out and sniffed the air. "That's not fuel." he told the others as they gathered around him, donning full scba. "That's--"

Headquarter's voice burst through their Converta-Com. ## Engine 51. L.A.##

"L.A., Engine 51." Cap mic'd quickly.

##An L.A.P.D. patrol car's just confirmed that your tanker is carrying a single payload. 10,000 gallons of....pancake syrup.##

"Pancake syrup?" Chet asked incredulously.

L.A. went on.## There's a report of one minor driver injury on the shoulder.##

"10-4, we'll keep an eye out for the victim. Engine 51 out. Ditch the air tanks, boys. Don't think scorching carbon's gonna do all that much harm to us in the short term." laughed Cap.

"Smells like burning marshmallows.." said Marco, grabbing some hose.

Cap, was still standing by the LaFrance's cab.

Stoker had handed him the HazMat book without asking and was helping him riffle through it.

Gage caught on, determining their wind direction. "Yeah. How in the world DO you put out a pancake syrup fire?"

Roy shrugged, grabbing out the biophone, oxygen and the light dressing case. "With batter?"

Everybody shared a laugh.

Roy and Johnny soon found their dazed, scuffed truck driver.  
A male. And they set to work assessing him while the others worked to snuffle out the hidden fire hissing softly under the smoke rising up from the large, slowly spreading pool of superheated tree sugar.

Soon, the fire was knocked down and Cap cancelled the foam truck and second alarm assignment.

The Battalion Chief arrived. "What happened?" McConnikee asked.

Cap couldn't help himself. "Fire."

"Oh?" said Battalion, starting to smile. "This had better be good."

"Oh, it is." Hank chuckled. "We've just this guy who's a little singed, but unharmed."

Soon, the veterans of the hose were joking about hot maple syrup and going back home to get containers.

Then, Vince arrived on scene. He had shown up for traffic control but had missed a few transmissions. "So, what happened?"

The Chief and Cap looked at each other. "Fire." Hank informed him cheekily. Then Battalion bent down and scooped up a fingerful of the glop and ate it. "Tastes like Mrs. Butterworth's."

"You're kidding." chuckled Vince.

"Would I be eating anything on the ground like this, mister, if I was?" laughed the Chief.

Nearby, Johnny was pumping up a BP cuff on the man they had laid down onto the ground for safety's sake. A passing motorist, sliding by the now declared unhazardous crash site, hollered out. "Is he gonna die?"  
to the working paramedics.

Gage looked up in utter shock and irritation. "Sure he dies...in about 80 years..." said the angry paramedic to the annoying bystander.

Roy got fed up at another one who was rude enough to open his mouth while they were loading up their patient into a Mayfair.

"What happened?" asked the second motorist.

DeSoto erupted. "Plane crash!" he shouted back.

The driver shot Roy a pissed off look and rolled up his window again.

"Nice.." admired Gage as he buckled in their man.

Of course Vince arrived belatedly to hush up all the coasting gawkers with his intimidating bulk.

Before the double doors of the ambulance were shut firmly by Hank, Chet shared a gem with everyone. "Hey.. who's up for some pancakes for breakfast? That truck smells real good.."

Even the bruised, sticky, and blanketed trucker laughed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Gage getting laughed at by Stoker and Kelly.

Photo: Gage bothered by a mystery while coffee pours.

Photo: Overturned hose washed tanker.

Photo: A pool of amber syrup on the ground.

Photo: A bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's pancake syrup.

Photo: Marco and Roy at an overturned tanker's window.

Photo: A man being splinted by Roy.

*  
From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy Date: Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:37 pm Subject: The Shattering..

Dixie McCall and Doctor Brackett were in the ER nurse's lounge,  
nursing steaming cups of satisying Folgers instead of screaming, fighting, leg bleeding people for once.

"So, did he live?" Dixie asked, smiling with her eyes closed while she gave herself a java treatment strictly by inhalation.

Kel was so tired that he was almost mesmorized by the way the flourescent lights in the room glowed off the steam curls wafting around Dixie's eye lashes. "Which one?" he chuckled.  
"Mr. 'Bus M.I.' or the street bum on the curb who suffered a stroke watching the first guy stagger away from the accident site?"

"Both." McCall amended.

"They'll be fine. The first was just a junctional problem and the second is responding to steroidal and anticlotting measures."

"That's good. All my leg cases are gonna recover, too. Except perhaps for mine. I ache all over." she complained, finally taking a gingerly sip of her stale coffee.

"Tell you what? We both get off in two hours. Why don't you grab your swimsuit out of your locker and I'll fire up the hot tub on the deck. Just for you."

"Hhmm. Tempting. Do I have to cook?"

"Lord no. Not after a night like tonight. That's what takeout's for."  
grumbled Kel.

Dixie's eyes twinkled. "Deal. But first you and I gotta take care of one more thing before we go. Remember you said you'd--"

The breakroom door opened. It was the dark eyed Sharon, calmer now but still with dishevelled hair. "Dixie? Roy and Johnny are here. You asked me to let you know when they dropped off their latest patient.."

Kel finally remembered his prior arrangement. "Oh, that's , Ms. Walters. We'll get right with them. Do they have a stokes with them?"

Sharon looked sideways, thinking for a moment. "Uh,. Sort of." she said mysteriously. "Does what looks like a sheet covered DB count?"

Brackett and Dixie burst out laughing. Kel's mirthful mouth split open in amusement and he gleefully got to his feet to rinse out both his and Dixie's drained coffee mugs in the tiny sink next to the fruit vending machine. "Those two." Brackett smiled. "You think a couple of firemen wouldn't get embarrassed about wheeling a CPR manikin into the emergency room."

Sharon frowned. "Now why would they be doing that?" still holding the door she had cracked opened.

"Wanna find out?" Kel asked her.

"Sure. I've got a few minutes. Oh. Uh. Dixie. Carol says hi, and all our treatment rooms have been cleaned up and are ready for the next wave to show up." Walters reported.

"Shhh." Dixie hissed. "Or you'll curse us with more patients too early. We haven't had a decent chance to catch our breaths back yet."

"Sorry.." Sharon apologized while she ducked out of the room to show the two senior staffers where DeSoto and Gage had holed up.

Brackett and Dixie soon followed her to meet up with 51's paramedics, padding down the still disarrayed hallway, piled up with extra supplies and gurneys. The waiting room, thankfully, was back down to normal density for walk-ins. And Morton and Early were deftly thinning down those numbers as they met their cases as they came to them.

Kel tapped his watch at them and held up ten fingers. Joe and Mike nodded their understanding.

Sharon took them to the vacuum isolation room, now brightly lit with its windowless door propped wide open.

Johnny Gage was leaning over the single center bed while he manhandled every inch of something wrapped around the training manikin's torso.  
The disguising sheet was shoved down around the doll's ankles and Brackett could see that everything Chet and Stoker had sketched out for him had been made and was in order.

"Did you remember the defibrillator battery?" Kel asked Roy.

"Yeah. I got it." replied Roy. "I pulled one out of the recharger we keep in Cap's office."

Gage chattered, high speed.  
"Ok.. I'm truly fascinated. Now what is this invention of Stoker and Kelly's, you guys? Some kind of splint?" Johnny said, pointing to the thick band of white canvas tarp encircling the Andy's chest. He could see the ends of it feeding into some kind of gray painted metal board and mechanism lying under the rescue doll that stretched from its head to its waistline.

"Not exactly, Johnny." grinned Kel. "Do you remember the old style thumpers we used to use out in the field? You two did utilize one the very night the paramedic program became officially ratified during that mudslide mining tunnel incident." he said, plugging the bulky battery into a terminal at the head.

"Yeah. I remember em." said Gage. "I remember I didn't like them too much for all the damage they did to someone's sternum, all for the sake of automated circulation. I can still hear the sound of crunching bones even to this day."  
he grimaced.

Brackett said nothing for a moment and pulled out a compression meter common to an electronic Resusci-Annie and plugged it into Roy and Johnny's station manikin, right into the cable port. "Gimme thirty, Johnny. Do the best CPR you can manage and I'll get a strip of it. I'm gonna show you something."

"Ok." Johnny shrugged, stepping up onto the gurney rungs. Roy opened the doll's shirt and Gage started in after getting a landmark through the new invented band. "Need ventilations?"

"Nope. Just those." Roy told him.

After a half minute of compressions, Johnny stepped back and waited for Brackett to show him the paper strip he had made off the manikin. Feeling cocky, Gage even folded his arms up with confidence, grinning. "Gonna be in the green. Every one of them. Stoker was a good teacher."

"They are." Brackett said, looking up. "But, did you ever notice this line on the graph paper?"

Frowning, Johnny looked. "Well what does that squiggle mean?"

"It's the line for intrathoracic pressure. And that solid, darker line above it is the point where passive refilling of a heart starts to occur on any relaxation period following a compression cycle. Do you see where your trace's at?"

Johnny squinted. "Yeah.. it's.. it's somewhere around 12 millibars."

"That's right. On averaging. Now did you know that the passive pressure inside someone's chest needs to reach 23 millibars in order to have any blood return, at all, to the heart during CPR? That's what this solid yellow line means on the second graph grid located below the one you're used to seeing." Brackett told him.

The implication struck Johnny like a blow. "What? You mean I wasn't doing a good enough job with my CPR just now?"

"You were according to the standards that we have in place currently. You did the required fifty/fifty up and down depth ratios, the required rate and position with only the usual consequences of a cracked rib or two." Kel said, crossing his arms together thoughtfully,  
waiting for his point to sink in.

Roy was already smiling.

Gage looked confused. "But that means--" he began.

"That's right. Your patient was still nonperfused ineffectively despite of everything you did." Brackett told him.

Johnny's mouth fell open in shock.

Roy leaned forward. "Johnny, haven't you ever wondered why we only manage to save two percent of all our witnessed cardiac arrest cases whenever CPR's used?" he told his numb partner.

"Well, sort of. It was in the back of my mind. But to tell you the truth, I never really gave that particular statistic much thought.." Gage said quietly.

Dr. Brackett frowned in agreement.  
"That's because having such a low number's so incredibly depressing.  
No one wants to think about it for very long. But your station fireman and station's engineer did." Dr. Brackett shared. "That's what this meeting's all about." he said, throwing a hand over the bed. "Roy, would you hook up that thumper next? Don't worry about the band. It won't effect our readings. Sharon, would you help him set it into place. It'll be good practice for you."

"Sure doctor." said Miss Walters.

"Ok." said Dr. Brackett. "Now we'll run the same thirty compressions using purely mechanical means with the thumper. Ready? Johnny, when it's done, tell us what's on the strip below the compression depth telemetry."  
Kel ordered.

Kel hit the start switch after setting up adult chest compression depth controls.

Soon, the trace was complete.

"What does it say?" Dixie asked with curiosity, swinging away the piston arm when the test interval was over.

Gage sighed, his new dismay apparent. "Hardly better than mine. Somewhere around 15 millibars pressure."

"Umm hmm." nodded Kel. "And that's only because the machine delivers compressions with absolutely perfect timing with no hesitations or different delivered depths to the sternum."

"Well, how about changing the way we do CPR nowadays to something else?  
Maybe thirty to two? Instead of five to one? That way maybe intrathoracic pressure can build back up in the circulatory system over time." Roy suggested.

"Not enough time's being devoted in studies to examine that angle, Roy."  
said Brackett sadly. "It may be thirty five years or so before anyone gets frustrated enough with all the poor CPR save counts to actually re-examine and question the status quo because the people who matter are continual suckers for established tradition and methodology. Especially in the firefighting and medical fields. There's bound to be tremendous resistance to ANY new CPR idea when that day does come."

"But that thumper still didn't do good enough.." Sharon whispered, just as stunned as Johnny as she saw that the readings had stayed the same dismal pressure as Johnny's hands on CPR.

"You mean we've been thinking we've been successfully maintaining these CPR needy people all these years with manual CPR and by automated thumpers when actually we weren't doing them a d*mned bit of good?" Dixie rasped in shock.

"There've been no confirmed cases of a CPR turn around when it was used all by itself until a defibrillator could also be used to correct the heart conductivity problem." Kel answered. "Our CPR attempts do help... But only a little bit."

"I don't understand." said Johnny.

Brackett held up a hand. "What happens to someone's blood when they exercise?"

Johnny was quick on that one."Carbon dioxide builds up and oxygen levels drop as the body demands more to sustain itself. Breathing picks up and the heart rate accelerates to meet increased need for metabolism."

"Exactly right. Now make that same person cardiac arrested and lying on the ground. What's happening now?" Kel challenged.

Johnny, Sharon and Dixie looked blank.

Roy replied. "Nothing. Oxygen isn't being used up because there's no circulation. Carbon dioxide isn't building up as fast as it could be like it does with a person who's still breathing. Oxygen need at this point isn't so critical. That's probably why the way we do CPR now seems to get enough oxygen to the brain to gain at least our current two percent survival rate with defibrillating capability."

"Precisely. At the moment of arrest, some of that still oxygenated blood gets to the brain and then any subsequent movements of a person's body helps minutely to get that last fully oxygenated heart's full sized volume where it belongs. But then, the heart gets emptied on the compressions and the super long pauses we take starting I.V.'s and intubating people drops off even that tiny bit of faint circulation to an arrested brain."

"And that's why the two percent.." Johnny said with stunned realization.

"Yes." said Brackett softly. "Now look at this.." he said, turning on a button to a machine box attached to Kelly and Stoker's invented manikin board.

The canvas band began to shrink until it just snugged around the chest.  
Then it began to regularly compress and release the whole ribcage; its top, sides and all, like a hangman tightening a slip noose. Kel adjusted it for the proper rate and for a single thirty compression sample cycle.

Gage nearly tore the paper strip printer out of the Annie reader getting the third test result. "Oh.. " he peeped. "It's showing 30 millibars. That's incredible!"

Sharon blinked and startled into a smile. "You mean the heart hypothetically is refilling after every compression now?"

"Yep." said Brackett. "I was intrigued when Stoker and Kelly came to me with this circumferential band compressing idea, but I honestly didn't know how well their device would actually work, until today..." he said. "And quite frankly. I'm very.....very pleased with what I'm seeing here."

Gage was stupified. "Wow, what about the force being delivered? Aren't all of Andy's ribs getting pulverised right now?" he said, flipping on the new board's power switch again to see a repeat demo.

"Nope." said Roy. "Put your hand under the band while it's working like this."

Johnny looked at him askance. But finally did. "Hey. It doesn't hurt at all.  
It only feels like a snug hug when it's bearing down pressure."

"That's because the band's got a larger surface area. Not just a tiny piston's circle or the palms of somebody's hands on a sternum."  
said Kel. "The lungs are also getting squeezed and released right along with the heart."

Roy grinned. "So some breathing's also being done by this thing and providing a slight bit of adequate carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange.." he told his partner.

"Do you realize what we've just seen here? This band machine's gonna revolutionize the whole fire department, probably nation wide!" Johnny gaped.

"I had a notion.." said Kel, his eyes very merry.

"Doc, we gotta test this out in the field. Roy, does this thing set up pretty fast?" Gage wanted to know, getting into it eagerly.

"Yeah.. takes about as long as a thumper does." DeSoto replied.

Johnny's face brightened into an excited beaming, but then it fell into dismay a second later. "Doc, what about ventilations? There's no time for much chest rise here."

Brackett chuckled. "You're forgetting the lung squeezes. He's already breathing somewhat. You won't need to ventilate anyone under this band when it's active much at all. I'm speculating that only a six to eight times a minute assisted breath rate'll be needed on pure oxygen."

"We gotta test this some more.. See what it can do on a real person!"  
Johnny said.

"I've already made those plans and got permission from the hospital administration to try out our next step." said Brackett. "Sharon. Go get one of today's med student donor specimens from downstairs. I think they're still in the prep room, waiting for tomorrow's physiology lecture."

"The adult male?"

"Or the woman. Makes no difference. Anyone who's the best unchilled will work for our purposes optimally."

"Right away, doctor."

Johnny ansed, pacing the tiny confidential room, rubbing his lips in barely contained excitement. "Oh, Roy.. this is ...this is absolutely astounding. Do you realize how much money could be generated for the sake of the fire department when folks'll start marketing this thing?!" He immediately checked himself. "Oh,  
and.. for the hospital as well....heh." he amended.

"And also for our spreading paramedic program.." Dixie added in wonderment.

The few minutes it took for Sharon to procure the cadaver seemed endless.  
But then she came.

"Did you put a chux under her?" Dixie asked Sharon.

"Yes, ma'am. I have fresh sheets, too. And suction if we need it." answered Walters.

"Ok.. Let's hook her up." said Brackett, opening the corpse's lab hospital gown for her physical shift onto the invention's working metal board. It took only a short time for them to fit the new band into place.

Johnny had a thought. "How long has she been dead?"

"About twenty four hours. We'll still receive good data despite of all her degraded internal chemistry changes. We needed someone past the rigor mortis stage." Brackett nodded. "Ready? Roy, turn on the new unit and the paper tracer."

Roy did so.

Johnny's eyes bugged out. "Oh, my..she's.." And he automatically reached for the body's carotid artery before he stopped himself.

"Regaining a good color?" grinned Brackett. "I knew she would.."

Dixie actually grabbed a fingernail and did a capillary refill check.  
"I got some?" she asked incredulously.

"Yep." said Roy, checking the other hand. "And all this lividity's travelling."  
DeSoto noticed. "See here on her stomach where we've touched her?"

"She's getting a pulse also. Down to the wrist." Brackett added, checking it.

Johnny was stunned utterly speechless. "Oh, boy. We gotta tell someone, doc. We gotta tell someone today about this whole thing." he muttered, falling into a seat next to the body's bed.

"We've got a long way to go before we demonstrate anything, Johnny."  
said Brackett. "What Firemens Stoker and Kelly have done here's a very novel start but any device based on their idea created commercially's gonna be crazy expensive: a very high price tag per use factor just to gain EMS a few more pink corpses in the field. And that my fine friends, will no doubt be given a very, very low priority by any brainchild organizations because their hands are already full regulating and promoting our still infant staged paramedic program."

Johnny was unbowed. "How much above the two percent you think we might gain with this band device when it DOES get developed by the powers that be for those folks who were witnessed arrests and receiving CPR?"

"High. Johnny. High." smiled Brackett. "I'm guessing around a thirty percent save rate in conjuction with the usual cardiac arrest protocols."

Gage goggled.

Roy pushed the next happy thought. "Ok. So it'll take more than just a few years to push anything more on this band thing. What are we all gonna call it when all the talking sessions DO begin in meetings a decade or so down the road?"

The room erupted in thoughts. "Robobeat?" "Heart belt?" "Autopulse?"  
suggested Johnny, Dixie and Sharon.

"I don't know." said Brackett, pleased, turning off the band's cycling motor.

They all watched as the woman's skin waxed once more into the original chalk and purpling pallor it had been when they began the test. "My guess is that the honor of naming anything will fall to the highest paying sponsor and developer. In any case, Stoker and Kelly will be well compensated eventually for their role in making this prototype for the county to see. The hospital can definitely keep Kelly and Stoker's machine safe here in storage until its final stage paperwork can be presented and pushed for the appropriate legislative and marketing levels when the time is ripe."

"Wow.." is all Johnny could dare himself to say. He was still shaking in reaction at the profoundness of all of it.

Brackett set a comforting hand on Johnny's shoulder. "Would you thank Chet and Michael personally for me for making two bands for the machine. This second one we'll have to throw away."

"Sure.. sure doc. Heh. I'll tell them that. And a whole lot more, too.  
I didn't know those two had it in them to do this kind of thing!" he gasped incredulously.

Roy smiled. "Well, you know what they say about all the quiet types and clowners of the world.."

"What do they say?" scowled Johnny, getting mad that his still flying high enthusiasm was due to someone else's good idea and tremendous luck.

"I'll leave that answer up to your infinite and ultimate wisdom, junior. Come on, let's help the doctor and nurses return this room back into working order. We can take Andy back out in his stokes the same way we got in." DeSoto sighed.

"Oh, yeah? But then we've got a cake to get to share with everybody here and at the station to celebrate. The chief's gonna freak when he hears that this invention's actually gonna work."  
Johnny crowed.

The two paramedics and the hospital staffers respectfully packaged up the donor body for the return trip back to the morgue. They washed up, disinfected everything, and went on with their respective work shifts with very light and happy hearts.

The experience in the isolation room had utterly banished all signs of fatigue and stress in absolutely each and every one of them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Stoker Roy doing CPR in the station vehicle bay.

Photo: Gage and Roy working with a CPR thumper in a cave in.

Photo: Johnny, frank and happy, in a treatment room.

Photo: Brackett, Roy and Johnny talk in treatment room.

Photo: Nurse Sharon Walters falling, Dixie Kel watching her.

Photo: Headless CPR. Fireman joke photo.

Photo: A heart compressing band device and short board.

Photo: A heart machine control panel.

Animation: A heart circumferential band compressing device at work.

*  
From: "Cory Anda" Date: Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:04 pm Subject: End of Day..

Dr. Brackett sighed two hours later as he finally reached the cool, dark sanctuary of his private office. ::I'm through for the night. Good riddance. Let the younger, fresher doctors play all the be-the-hero roles this morning. Dixie and I are gonna hide.:: he thought with a tired smile.

He was barely settled in his chair with his feet up with both burning eyes buried deep beneath his leather jacketed arm, when the door flung open to admit a fast retreating Dixie McCall.

"Kel! They're after me!" she said, slamming the door shut and leaning with all of her weight against it.

Dr. Brackett didn't even move. "Are you off the clock?"

"Yes. I punched out in the locker room, while begging a cigarette off of Carol. But hers are all gone."

"Then you're Scot free. You can let go of the knob. The door locks now. Had it installed yesterday, right after an amorous druggie tried to get to know me a little bit better past just the usual doctor to patient relationship."

Click! snapped the lock as Dixie turned it. The hurrying footsteps that had followed her, wandered away finally, a few seconds later.

"Who were they?" Brackett asked, his voice muffled.

"I'm not gonna tell you. You'll only get mad. Then you'll go out there to fix their problem yourself and not get paid for it." Dixie explained. Kel sighed unhappily. He was the very picture of fatigue. But one hand snaked into a drawer and pulled out a pack of Menthol 100s for Dixie. He gave them to her with a tattered book of matches without even stirring from his comfortable slumped pile in the chair or opening his eyes.

Dixie chuckled low in her chest. "Thanks, Kel. But now that I've got em, I think I'm way too tired to smoke. I just might black out on you if I even try." And she tossed them right back into the open desk drawer with a practiced flip.

McCall exactly matched Kel's sag by sliding into the guest chair, opposite the desk from him. She slung her legs over the cushy orange arms as she slipped off her thick, tan, high heeled pumps. "Ooooh. This feels so good." she melted, letting her head fall over the seat's back. She began loosening the straight pins out of her bun to release her long, flowing frosted hair out of its constrictive style.

Both nurse and doctor let the sweet silence, now filling the room, stretch between them for long treasured moments.

Then an unintentional thump on the wall from the hallway made Dixie jump. McCall flew up, startled, to her bare stocking feet. "Ahh!" She immediately winced with a tension headache. "You wouldn't happen to have any morphine in that cigarette drawer, would you? Or a valium?"  
she said, sitting down tightly, still holding her newly throbbing head.

Brackett opened his eyes, pulling his arm down. "You know the answer to that one, Dixie. All pharmaceuticals must be regularly stored in the--"

"...in the locked cabinet at Emergency's front desk. Yes, I know. That was just one hundred percent pure wishful thinking on my part. I'm trying to trick my head into believing that I'm actually on the way home right now." and she let out a small groan of pain.

Kel got up from his chair, smiling gently. He padded over to stand behind her, in his own stocking feet, and he started to massage her still knotted up and tensed shoulders and neck. "So, how are you coping without Carol as your second in command these days?"

"To tell you the truth, Kel, after today, I don't think I can take it any more."  
she whimpered without any tears. "Our two mutual triage incidents today only proved to show just how much I've relied on her all of these years to help me out, in running the place. I just didn't realize how much I really needed her, until she was gone." Dixie said grumpily.

Kel chuckled softly. "Do you think Sharon's gonna be the right candidate to fill her shoes? She's come a long way from being that awkward, giggling candy striper, who always tripped over herself whenever things got a little busy."

"She's the one." Dixie sighed. "Of that I have no doubt."

"Oh? What made you finally come to that conclusion?"

"Because I see in her exactly the way I used to be." Dixie said, letting Kel massage away the night's stressful memories. "She's a good nurse, and she'll be an even better leader eventually. I think I've just forgotten how long it takes to shape a promising protege' for the assistant head nurse spot.  
Carol picked it up instantly, probably because she spent so much time over in..uh,..in ...Nam. Roy even ....r- remembers seeing ...her." McCall's words grew slower and slower as actual sleep started threatening to overtake her.

"Dixie?" he smiled. Dr. Brackett lingered a touch on the pulse at Dixie's neck.  
"Are you still here?" he teased.

"Barely.." she whispered, falling completely limp and pliable in both of his soothing, massaging palms.

Kel kissed the top of her head affectionately. "Believe it or not, I've got you calmed down now. You're below seventy." he said, letting her go with a last shoulder squeeze. "So, you wanna just hang out and watch nonexistent cobwebs grow here at the hospital? Or are you ready for us to begin our late evening/early morning time out at the Green Pagoda?"

"Food. Now. Please." she said, letting him put her shoes back on. "There's no debate. Not any more. My nicotine shot nerves can just go straight to--"

"I promise you fried wantons in fifteen minutes." Kel grinned, helping her back onto her sore feet as he opened the office door to the loud distinctive sounds of a still very busy waiting room.

"When I get my brain and blood sugar back, I wanna get excited all over again about that resuscitation device Station 51 cooked up, ok? So start preparing your skin shivery lecture all over again. I still can't believe what can and might happen with that device of theirs soon. But honestly? Your voice's about all I have the energy for right now."

"I'll change dinner to egg drop soup and green tea. That way you won't have to chew anything." Dr. Brackett promised her as they walked out of the emergency doors to the parking lot and paced slowly for Kel's dark green sports car.

"Perfect." she sighed, linking her arm into his. "I wanna be soup, too, in your hot tub."

"Already arranged, hon. I had the landlady fire it up ten minutes ago."

"You're such a good friend." Dixie burbled sleepily, almost weepy with tiredness. She leaned her head heavily on his arm and let him support her.

"You're not so bad yourself as one, either. I like fussing over you, Dixie.  
Haven't you learned that by now?" he told her."You always make my day." he said, opening the passenger door for her. "No matter how bad it gets."

Both of them smiled when they saw that the sun had already started rising for the new day.

::Thank God, it's Monday.:: McCall thought, buckling in. :: At last.  
Now we can both just collapse, and rest for a good.. lonnggg while.::

-  
The kitchen at Station 51, was a hot bed of activity. Chet's mouth was still gaping open over the sight of the rescue squad decorated cake that Roy and Johnny had picked up on their way back to base from their latest non-transportation call. Stoker was handling it a little better, and like Kelly, he was still grinning like a banshee.

"Tell me that again, Gage. Our machine.. It really worked?" asked Kelly.

"Yep. Like a charm." replied Roy. "The cadaver was dead a day and your band machine still started moving every single solitary drop of blood in her."

"You mean if she'd been alive, it would have saved her?" asked Chet.

"Dr. Brackett seems to think so. Well enough for all practical intent and purposes." Roy nodded.

Stoker's eyes bugged out, still tickled pink, and he smacked Chet's arm in celebration. "How about that, Chet? We actually did it!"

Gage winked at them. "Even I was impressed." he said.  
"Well, that's not saying anything." remarked Chet. "It doesn't take that much to ever impress you, Gage. You're such a simpleton." the fireman teased with a straight face.

"Yeah.. but I'm such a smart one." Johnny fired back with no sting. "Smart enough to do you a favor by getting Brackett and the hospital administrators to appraise your machine. Aren't Roy and I gonna get some thanks for doing it?"

"Thanks, guys." said Stoker. "And I mean that."

"You're welcome, Stoker. Thanks for the experience." Johnny smiled,  
but then he glared at Chet, full guns. "I've never seen anything the like of it before. Not since the birth of plastic bagged D5W."

Kelly just chewed his piece of cake, and grinned. "Hmmph.. Like he said.." he mumbled, jerking a thumb at Stoker, spraying crumbs out of his mouth and all over the floor.

Bonnie began immediate cleanup detail around his feet.

Johnny had to be content with not hearing two certain little words from his cohort. But on this morning of all mornings, it didn't really seem to bother him all that much for once.

Cap was just about to comment on how kid-cute-ly the cake had been decorated, when the intercom tones went off.

It was for..

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Close up of a congrats cake with a rescue squad decoration.

Photo: Brackett hugging Dixie affectionately.

Photo: Gage sulking around Chet.

Photo: Stoker throwing on his overcoat at a tones call.

*  
From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy Date: Sat Apr 29, 2006 6:40 pm Subject: Trial by Error

...one of the most dreaded calls a fire department could ever hear come into their station.

##Station 51, Station 9, Truck 127, Battalion 1. Foam 110,  
Station 24. Gas leak at an elementary school. 2780 N. Nellis Blvd.  
2780 N. Nellis Blvd. Cross street Arroyo Grande Boulevard. The gas company is reported as having arrived on scene. Time out : 0659.##

"10-4. Station 51. KMG 365..." said Cap into the reply radio set into the wall next to the large map of Los Angeles County. Stoker didn't have to trace their route this time. He and the rest of the gang already knew the way.

"Roy!" Gage shouted. "Is that the school both of your kids are going to?"

"No. They're in another district." DeSoto sighed, rushing into his smoke scented turnout with a speed only a father could accomplish. "Don't tell me we're dealing with M&M Construction again. I thought OSHA shut them down for good last week." he said, waiting for the bay doors to rise high enough to admit them outside. He made his immediate right turn in the squad, squealing a few tires.

Behind them, Cap pretended that he didn't notice when the Ward did the same thing, lurching into the fast lane at slightly higher than normal speed.

Inside the engine cab, Stoker was grumbling. "It's gotta be those construction crews again. That school's in their territory, Cap. I know the court ordered them to check ahead of time to get the location of any gas lines and display that proof on site before they started any wash grading, but I'm getting one of my little feelings again."

Chet smacked a gloved hand against both of their red leathered driving seats. "Stoker, now cut that out. Don't you know that all six of us are in really good moods this morning for once? Now we don't need your natural born precognating juju firing up so soon to spoil it."

Marco rubbed his tense face, frowning. He tightened his helmet's chin strap with a nervous grip. "I don't think he's worried about just his own head firing up, Chet." he commented ominously. "That neighborhood's got houses that're really closely packed together."

"How could I forget that, pal? We've shown up for every mock evacuation drill that school conducted every spring and fall for the last past five years." snapped Kelly.

Hank held up two hands around his seatbelt to get his men to calm down a little bit. "Hush, you two. Let's not count all our possible disasters scenarios before they happen, ok? I for one, am gonna remain strictly optimistic. The wind's not blowing all that bad for us yet." he said, sniffing appreciably at the dew damp sunlit dawn blowing into the cab.

"Wait'll the sun gets a little higher..." murmured Chet, settling into his seat glumly as he watched the scenery pass in jerky movements by his window.

Unpleasantly overhearing, Stoker upp'ed their siren volume and pushed the safety envelope between them and the speeding rescue squad, letting Roy and Johnny know his change with a few blasts on the airhorn.

Squad 51 needed no urging. She leaped ahead, crisscrossing over whole driving lanes as she tracked the shortest possible route through the traffic lights.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, nuts! It IS them.." Cap spat as Stoker brought the engine to a halt the customary two hundred feet away from a danger spot. A backhoe loader surrounded by bright flourescent orange cones was being eerily lit by a roaring plume of invisible natural gas, dust and metallic debris, shooting high into the sky. He sent Marco, and Chet out of the engine to snag out all six of their scba bottles and spares from the squad.

Hank rolled up his cab side window.  
"Stoker. Stay in the engine. We're gonna sweep this block with an evacuation order. Looks like the PD's not here yet to do it themselves."

The tight lipped engineer nodded, already turning the huge pumper in a large U'ie in the middle of the road and back towards the downwind direction of houses they had just passed.

Already, the mercaptan indicator odor was reaching near choking levels, even in the open air. "They must've hit a 16 inch line or greater this time. I'm seeing the glint of coal tar enamel coating that pipeline." he said, looking through a small set of binoculars."That's got to be at least a 300-pound pressure line that's been severed or I've missed my guess." he told his men with dismay when E-51 had reached her final mid-block position, cock-eyed at an angle to block off curious motorists.

Stanley grabbed for the radio cab mic and keyed it up. ## #This is the Los Angeles County Fire Department declaring an evacuation emergency! Leave your homes and classrooms immediately! Move on a route heading north towards 21st Street and Main in the direction of the high school. Do not stop to open any windows and do NOT under any circumstances, turn any appliances, or lights, on or off. Take all ringer phones off their hooks.# ## he added, thinking about electrical sparking and the sheer volume of frantic parent phone calls that would come once the newstrucks starting airing the school's escalating incident.

Hank finished his initial recording into the dash tape recorder and looped it into the Ward's P.A. on continuous playback. Then he leaped out of the idling cab to accept the tank an air masked Chet already held out for him. Cap coughed away the rotten egg smell stinging his nostrils, retreating quickly into the cool sanctuary of his flowing faceplate.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Station 9 gearing up and reporting their situation to Headquarters and to the white helmeted chief just getting out of his cherry red Chevy. Cap didn't waste any time contributing his own input.

Building evacuation was automatically specified in the manual as his station's first course of action due to the intense explosion risks now running.

And Hank was truly worried about the clouds threatening to overcast them. He knew the wind would soon pick up then in the canyon and start to blow the escaping gas, both from the severed massive pipeline and venting of the existing line's contents, out of the surrounding homes and school's gas flame interrupted water heaters and furnaces. ::If any air at all snuffed out pilots lights,  
we could be in for a potential multiple-ignition-point fire four blocks wide. And all it takes for that to happen is one careless cigarette smoker, lighting up.:: he qualmed.

It was only a matter of time before the rest of the stinking cloud carried into other buildings by gaps around their outer doors and through the fresh-air intakes on their roof-top HVAC units. Thankfully, Hank was peripherally aware of police and the other assigned fire units conducting rapid traffic control in a very confused intersection down the block from the gas leak's volcano-ing excavation site. He could vaguely see streams of escaping children being helped away by bright vested adult crossing guards and by the police. Stanley knew that it was progressing well because there were few sounds of startled screams cutting through the hissing sound of the rupture belching violently in the ground.

Stanley formatted his evacuation plan out loud.  
"Marco, you're with me. We'll check all the houses on the east end of this block. Roy, Johnny cover the west side.... We're all gonna get people out and look for possible casualties. These fumes are getting real bad. Fast." he shouted, his voice muffled by his air mask. "Search and move together within visual eyesight of each other. And gang. Listen to me closely. Shut your radioes off and keep them that way. The gas pressure inside of any room will be very low, less than 1/2 of a pound per square inch, but spark risks are still very much there.  
We do have some margin of safety working for us. Natural gas requires a very precise air-to-fuel ratio to allow for any kind of combustion. You'll know when you're in a trouble spot because the smell of it will become unbearably strong just before the atmosphere becomes explosive. People you find in these areas will be very, very sick. Recover them as quickly as possible and get out of there. Don't even stop for a pulse check. There's no time. Is that understood?"

All of Stanley's firemen nodded.

"Don't use your hand helds until you know you're back out in very, very clear air and use them only if you have to. Get everybody out into the street so they can be evacuated and treated.  
I'll be watching out for all of ya with constantly updated reports on the leak's repair from the gas company." he said. "Once we're declared population clear, go back over your territory and locate all the meter shut-off valves.

For this neighborhood, it's usually the first fitting on the gas supply pipe coming out of the ground near the mint green colored meters round the side of each house. Give a long-handled wrench one-quarter turn in either direction on the valves so that all levers are crosswise to your pipe to reach 'off'. And shut off all stop valves labelled "WOG" behind appliances as you find them."

"At least, there's no ignition or explosion yet, Cap." Roy told him, eyeing up the shortest routes that he and his partner would take across the house lawns to reinforce the loud, recycling evacuation announcement.

"Believe me, I'm Hail Mary-ing that blessing this morning with the best of em."  
Cap smirked briefly. "Go. We'll start PPVing classrooms and houses only when the leak's been contained and repairs have begun." Cap said. "If you've finished up your houses, go help pull kids out of the school windows. Looks like they're jamming up the fire doors."

Kelly jogged up. "Cap, we've got a few owners who want to go back in to get their pets out."

"Where?" asked Hank.

He turned around in place with one eye on his two departing coworker pairs and the other he put into the direction Chet was pointing.

"At the Promontory Point Apartments over there. Those ugly peach adobe ones located behind the school." Kelly told him.

"Too close. Signal the police to tell them 'no' any way they'll take it."  
Kelly started to jog away when Cap snagged the back of his air tank,  
and hauled him back around using his greater size.  
"Ah, ah ah. Tell them from here with a hand gesture because I need you to set up every on-scene truck's medical gear, strong on respiratory equipment. And grab out all our own oxygen supplies." Stanley told him. "We as L.A. County have far more than the non-paramedic stations do. So offer our extras up to any firemen showing up with victims."

"Right, Cap..." said Kelly running to the squad and engine to break out their stokes stretcher stores and oxygen apparatuses. He gingerly set metal cases and basket beds down on top of asbetos tarps to prevent any chance of an errant pavement spark happening inside a sudden tendril of migrating invisible gas.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roy and Johnny began to run for their nearest house, keeping pace with Marco and Hank's progress on the opposite side of the street. They widely circled around the violently hissing pipe hole in the center island's machine graded ditch.

DeSoto tapped his partner's shoulder when they reached the first porch.  
"You know, Any air in that pipe line could allow an explosion if a malfunction in an appliance allows its flame to flash back upstream. They're gonna have to seriously purge that big line once they get it shut off..."

Johnny nodded. "Air definitely does not belong in a gas line. But I can think of a worse situation for us to be in. Remember the last gas call involving M & M when they were accidentally flushing the water mains last year using their utility truck?"

"Yeah, I remember. They backpumped pure gas into everybody's toilets and garden hoses for not knowing a hydrant's normal water pressure. It's a wonder nobody was killed during that stunt." Roy gasped as they approached a front door.

The two paramedics didn't bother to knock. They just entered. By any movement-quiet means possible.

"Hey! Is anybody in here?! Fire Department! You gotta get out now. Pipe leak!"  
they shouted.

A sleepy young mother with her baby staggered out of a bedroom. "What?!"  
Then she started coughing when the sour rotten egg of gas sidled into her open front door. "Oh, no.**choke*"

Gage immediately covered the baby's face with an offered air mask and showed the mother out to the safety of the cluster of light flashing fire engines. He choked a few times on the room's gas stench but soon, he was back at Roy's side breathing tanked air. "Any more?" he asked as he saw Roy leaving the mother's back rooms. "No. The rest of the house's empty.." DeSoto whistled through his steaming face plate.

"Ok, let's mark this one's main door with a search sticker and move to the next house..." Johnny said, smacking one onto the front door and leaving it conspicuously ajar. As they were leaving for the neighbor's,  
along the way, Gage overturned a few lawn chairs to clue in other firefighters as to the first house's completed victim search status.

Seven minutes later, there was only one house left to check. The one immediately in a direct downwind coming from the rupture.

Kelly had taken to following Roy and Johnny along the curb with demand valve cases, staying available for them and offering keen observations for them from the street. He shouted. "There's somebody home over there. A jacuzzi's still on, with a pair of men's shoes around it."

Johnny and Roy ran inside the house, tanks clattering. "Check that out, Chet, for anybody blacked and drowning. The fumes are getting really bad over here." Roy said, seeing a couple of dead sparrows on the grass.

Kelly dropped his two oyxgen cases to the grass and ran to the house's deck. He grabbed a bird feeder pole out of the ground and used it as a probe, sweeping it from side to side in the steam bubbling tub's water.  
"It's clear..." he told DeSoto and Gage as they disappeared inside the dwelling.

"Ok, we'll be right back!" Johnny shouted to him.

Roy did a double take at the family name on the front door. "Did you see that?" he asked his partner.

"H--?" Johnny blinked. "I'll check in here, you check down the hallway." Gage said distractedly, looking towards the pine tree shadowed living room.  
DeSoto wasn't to be denied giving news."Johnny the welcome sign said Brackett! Doesn't he live out this way?" Roy hesitated.

"Oh, sh*t.. Uh.... Maybe.." Johnny gasped through his mask. "But doesn't he work today?"

"Nah.. it's his weekend. He's still gotta be here. There's a car in the driveway."  
Roy shouted back.

A few tense searching seconds later Gage yelled, pulling Roy away from his own room searching. "Got him...!" Johnny said quickly, seeing a pajama tangled form in a blanket on the couch.

A TV set was still on and ironically, it was covering the gas leak incident on the news.

"Hey,.. Dr. Brackett?!...Can you hear me?.." he shouted, bending close and shaking a shoulder. But Kel didn't move. "He's unconscious, Roy."

"Let's get him outta here..." said DeSoto, grabbing his legs.

Johnny got a hold of Brackett's head and armpits and soon, they had him outside.

Chet met them both running, and he helped lower the pale doctor to the asphalt. "Holy cow, isn't that---?"

"Yes, Chet. It's him. Just shut up and get out the resuscitator.  
He's getting cyanotic." Gage grunted as he and Roy laid him out onto his back and opened his shirt. All three firefighters ditched their scba gear.

For the few moments it took Kelly to get things ready, Johnny did a breathing check after tilting a clear airway on the Rampart doctor. Gage froze, listening and feeling intently. "He's not breathing.." he told them.

To save time, Johnny gave Kel two hurried, light breaths, mouth to mouth, to see if he could get a decent chest rise. He did. Then a quick gloveless grope at a cold sweating neck also proved fruitful. "He still has a strong carotid..."

Roy and Chet sighed in relief at that finding.

"That was close.." Kelly whispered. "Always better half gone than all gone..." Chet quickly took over Kel's care using the thumb trigger valve. "Ok, he's regaining good color, guys." he shared as Roy and Johnny caught their breaths and finished summoning help. "And there's a definite voluntary gasp. I think he's coming around a little already."

"Just keep helping him." Johnny directed. "He's not out of the woods yet. Gas suffocation's funny that way."

Johnny rose up on his knees to a greater height and horsewhistled, getting Cap's attention to get a couple of firefighters with a empty stokes on the fly so they could get their patient over to the rest of the medical gear and closer to a defibrillator.

Hank's face opened in shock at the sight of who they were working on.  
"Kel Brackett? Is he all right?" He crouched down to be sure Chet was making the proper rate and volume of ventilations around the doctor's own feeble attempts at weak breathing.

"He will be. We got to him in time. Nothing that a little epinephrine won't fix." Roy said. "His pulse's still real good."

"Where'd you find him?" Hank asked.

"On the living room couch."

"He a bachelor?" Cap asked, wondering.

"Yeah. He lives alone.." DeSoto replied, fully expecting the question.

"All right. Move him out, boys." ordered Cap to the firefighters he had brought with him.

Before they got even halfway to Chet's cache of waiting medical equipment,  
Brackett came to and began to struggle, almost worming his way out of the stokes he was being carried in. The firemen lowered him to the street in a controlled drop before he could fall and hurt himself.

"Doc! Doc! It's Johnny Gage. Take it easy. You're doing fine." Johnny said, taking hold of a bleary eyed, now coughing Kel, by his shock dampened shoulders. "Here. Breathe in more of this oxygen we're giving ya. You weren't doing it so hot a moment ago..."

Kel twisted up and choked, turning red, as huge coughs finally cleared the rest of his chest free of the burning smell of gas. Then he relaxed physically. But mentally, he was very agitated.

They all watched worriedly as he grabbed his T-shirt in a powerful grip.

"What's the matter?" Roy asked him. "Does your chest hurt?"

Kel took another breath of oxygen from the offering mask. Then he began to fight it, actively pushing it away. "D-D-D-....." he stuttered, shivering in a sweat chill. A firefighter covered him with a yellow sheet, thinking that was his complaint.

Johnny leaned in closer, thinking he heard something different.  
"What was that? Can you say that again?"

Brackett's face contorted.. "...dixie.." he moaned, wincing.

The paramedics misunderstood. "Dixie? Easy, doc. Yeah, don't worry. We'll call her just as soon as we've stabilized your vital s---" DeSoto started to say.

Kel caught his collar in a death grip. "Go..get her out! Came home with me.." he whispered painfully as he tried to struggle to full awareness. Then he let go, his head falling to one side into a lapse of returned breathing difficulty.

Chet's face paled. "Oh, ...no ..way...." Kelly gaped in disbelief, eyes sliding back to the silent, white porched house.

Hank was iron. "Kelly. Go check it out with your air on. Check out the bedrooms first. I'll take over here." Cap said, starting to ventilate Brackett once more when his chest failed to move well enough for him.

Chet ran.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kelly got into the house.

"Dixie!" he shouted. His breaths whistled loudly in his mask as he quickly searched for a direction in which to head. Then he saw a baby blue glow coming from the bathroom stabbing into the room that was its opposite. The new sun's dappling light was illuminating a fallen pillow on the carpeting. "Bet she's in there.." he mumbled to himself. "Probably knocked it down trying to get out of the room."

He found Dixie sideways on the bed, nearly hidden by sheets. She was in a one piece swimsuit and still wearing rubber sandals.

"Gone to sleep after hot tubbing it, huh? Well, getting gassed by a neighbor isn't exactly what I call the nicest way to unwind. Not by a long shot." Chet told her coughing, half out form as he hauled her up and hung her face down into the perch between his air bottle and a turncoated shoulder.

Dixie groaned at the jarring disturbance.

"Easy, Dixie. I got you." Kelly said, making tracks for the front door.  
"Just keep breathing.."

Twin sounds of demand valve ventilations punctuated the air around the fire department broadcasts near the high school.

Roy and Johnny were just beginning to treat their current and past bosses when a young student wandered up from the other kids still in the group awaiting buses that would take them safely back home for the day.

"Hey, are those people going to be ok?" asked the little girl as she looked down as Stoker and Marco lightly aided the nurse and doctor's shallow respirations.

DeSoto smiled as he adjusted an EKG reading on a yellow shock sheet blanketed Dixie. "They sure will. All that escaping gas's just made them a little sleepy. Don't worry. Those oxygen masks will help them wake up from their naps in a couple minutes." he promised.

"Good." said the little girl, satisfied. "I'm glad. I didn't think there was anything you guys couldn't do.." she told them matter of factly.

Hank started chuckling. "Huh, what a concept." Then he asked the child. "Who put that thought in your head this morning, young miss?"

"My teacher." she replied, thoughtfully chewing on a ponytail.

The firemen looked polite and didn't comment on that further like nice little firefighters, while they quietly worked to ready Dixie and Kel for a code three transportation to Rampart.

The happy girl shared more. "Didn't you know? You're famous. That day we played together got on the news. And today, my teacher says the reporters are all calling your Station 51, the house of the Water Day Saints on TV." she said proudly.

"Well, how about that gang?" Stanley grinned. "Tops even that cake we still have sitting out, getting stale, in the kitchen."

FIN

Water Day Saints, Episode Thirty Two Emergency Theater Live

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